How should failed or empty collections be handled?

Inspect per-target failedRuns and each successful run identity. Empty sources or null fields are valid output; a missing failed run is not an empty successful answer. A completed job can contain failed collections.

Collected data

Perplexity: sources

Provider-specific source titles and URLs, with empty lists allowed.

Collection target: perplexity. Field availability depends on the provider output shown below.

Understand the collected data

Chatbots return sources alongside text and markdown. Google returns AI Overview sources within aioverview and search links within serp. Google News returns article links within googleNews.results and googleNews.topNews.

Collected data

The API does not guarantee a complete reference panel, resolve every redirect, or return normalized domains and source frequency. Build those transformations downstream if needed.

The perplexity target returns text, markdown, pageUrl and sources with the successful run identity and capture time. Source lists may be empty and response fields may be null. Perplexity may use operator-configured sessions. Availability depends on deployment configuration and provider behavior; no response or citation count is guaranteed.

Provider output examples

These are illustrative successful run excerpts, not full result files or calculated metrics. Submit POST /v1/crawl-jobs, track completion, then download the authenticated result. Outputs depend on the target; a chatbot has no news articles or Google position fields.

{
  "runNumber": 1,
  "runTaskId": "9a7536e7-b610-420a-a34c-5f829956f4d3",
  "status": "completed",
  "capturedAt": "2026-10-09T10:01:00.000Z",
  "text": "Illustrative captured answer text.",
  "markdown": null,
  "pageUrl": "https://www.perplexity.ai/",
  "sources": []
}

Illustrative provider output. Empty lists and null fields are valid; inspect failedRuns in the result file.

Full result format and failed-run handling →

Sources FAQ

Does the API calculate sources?: Chatbots return sources alongside text and markdown. Google returns AI Overview sources within aioverview and search links within serp. Google News returns article links within googleNews.results and googleNews.topNews.
How should failed or empty collections be handled?: Inspect per-target failedRuns and each successful run identity. Empty sources or null fields are valid output; a missing failed run is not an empty successful answer. A completed job can contain failed collections.

Use collected data to build your own reporting and analysis. Our team arranges API access and follows up with next steps.

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