What is llms.txt? A plain guide with an example

What is llms.txt?

llms.txt is a plain text file in Markdown format, placed at the root of your website (yourdomain.com/llms.txt), that summarises your site for large language models. It gives a short description of who you are and a list of links to your most useful pages, so an AI tool can understand your site without crawling all of it.

It was proposed in 2024 as an open, informal standard. It is not run by Google, OpenAI or any other company, and no assistant is required to read it.

How is llms.txt different from robots.txt and sitemap.xml?

robots.txt controls access, sitemap.xml lists every page, and llms.txt explains what matters. They do different jobs and you can have all three.

• robots.txt tells crawlers which parts of the site they may or may not visit. It's a set of rules. Build one with the robots.txt generator.
• sitemap.xml lists all the URLs you want search engines to find, for machines only. Make one with the sitemap generator.
• llms.txt is a human-readable summary with a curated set of links, written so a language model can quickly understand your business and pick the right page to read.

llms.txt does not grant or block access. If you want to control which AI crawlers can visit, that still happens in robots.txt, using the AI robots.txt rules tool.

What does an llms.txt file look like?

An llms.txt file starts with your site name as a heading, then a one-line summary, then sections of links with a short note on each. Here is what each line of a simple example for a Hyderabad bakery would contain, from top to bottom:

• Line 1: a top-level heading with the business name, written as # Sweet Crumb Bakery.
• Line 2: a blockquote summary starting with >, such as: Home bakery in Gachibowli, Hyderabad, making eggless cakes, cookies and custom celebration cakes since 2018.
• Line 3: a few plain sentences with key facts, such as delivery areas, order lead time and whether you take bulk orders.
• Line 4: a section heading written as ## Main pages.
• Lines 5 onwards: one list item per page, written as a dash, the page name in square brackets, the full URL in round brackets, then a colon and a short note, such as Custom cakes: designs, flavours and prices per kg.
• Further down: a section written as ## Optional, holding less important links such as the blog or careers page, which tools can skip if they are short on space.

Keep it short. The point is to give a quick, accurate overview, not to copy your whole site into one file.

Who reads llms.txt today?

Adoption is early and uneven. Some AI tools, developer assistants and documentation platforms read llms.txt when they find it, and a growing number of sites publish one. The major AI assistants have not publicly committed to using it as a core signal when answering questions.

Google has said it does not use llms.txt for Search, and it is not a ranking factor in Google or Bing. Anyone who claims an llms.txt file will boost your rankings or guarantee AI mentions is overselling it.

So why bother? Because it takes a few minutes, has no downside, and gives any tool that does read it a clean, accurate summary of your business in your own words. That's useful as AI search develops.

How do you make an llms.txt file?

Write the summary and links in a text editor, save the file as llms.txt, and upload it to the root of your domain. Or let a tool draft it for you.

1. Open the llms.txt generator, enter your site and business details, and copy the file it creates.
2. Edit the summary so the facts are exact: what you do, where, for whom and anything that sets you apart.
3. Pick your 5 to 20 most useful pages: services, products, pricing, locations, About, Contact and key FAQs.
4. Upload the file so it opens at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. On WordPress you can use a file manager or an SEO plugin that supports it; on most hosts, upload it to the public_html folder.
5. Open the URL in a browser to confirm it loads as plain text.

SEO Studio writes an llms.txt as part of every full-site report, using the pages and facts it finds while crawling.

What else helps AI assistants understand your site?

llms.txt is one small piece. The bigger factors are whether AI crawlers can read your pages and whether those pages state clear facts.

• Check AI crawler access with the AI crawler checker.
• Add business and FAQ schema with the schema generator and FAQ schema generator.
• Keep your name, address and descriptions consistent everywhere online.

For the complete approach, read how to rank on ChatGPT and SEO vs AEO vs GEO.