How to diagnose why you dropped out of Perplexity citations
Short answer: work through four checks in order. First, can Perplexity's crawler still reach your page? Second, is it a real drop or run-to-run variation? Ask the same questions again, several times each, and compare like with like. Third, which pages does Perplexity cite now instead of yours? Fourth, when it does mention you, does it still describe you correctly? Each check has a different fix, so do them in that order.
1. Can Perplexity still reach your page?
A page an engine cannot read cannot be cited. The most common silent cause is access: a robots.txt change that blocks PerplexityBot, a CDN or firewall setting that blocks AI crawlers, a stray noindex, or content that only appears after JavaScript runs. The Free AEO Checker reads your live robots.txt and llms.txt, checks the bots behind ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini, and flags edge blocks and content missing from the plain HTML.
2. Is it a real drop?
Perplexity's answers vary between runs. One answer without your site is not a drop. Ask the same questions you asked before, with the same wording, five times each, and compare the share of answers that cite you with the share from your earlier measurement. If you never measured before, this is the measurement to keep as your baseline.
3. What does Perplexity cite instead?
Collect the sources from those answers and rank them by how often they appear. If a set of pages now appears where yours used to, that is where the answer is being built from. Read them: do they mention you? A page that does not mention you will not put you into an answer built from it.
4. Does it still describe you correctly?
When the answer does name you, check the facts against your own site: name, what you do, who runs it, your prices as your pricing page states them. An engine that confuses you with a similarly named company may stop citing you, or cite the wrong site.
How AEO Analyzers helps
The Free AEO Checker covers check 1. A Citation Sweep covers checks 2 to 4: it asks Perplexity (and the other engines on your plan) your buyers' questions several times each with search on, stores every answer and its sources, separates found from recommended, and keeps each sweep so the next one can be compared with it.
Questions people ask
How long until Perplexity notices a fix?
We do not know, and no one can promise a date. Measure again on the same questions after the change and compare; the dates show timing, not cause.
Should I write new content to get back in?
Only after checks 1 and 3. If Perplexity cannot reach you, new content changes nothing. If it cites other pages for the question, the work is often on those pages rather than on yours.
AEO Analyzers (aeoanalyzers.com) was created and is solely maintained by Lindsay Hiebert, founder of PIGENAI LLC. It is unaffiliated with any similarly named browser extension, plugin, or tool.