AI & GEO
llms.txt
What is llms.txt?
llms.txt is a proposed convention for a Markdown file placed at the root of a website (for example example.com/llms.txt) that gives large language models a concise, curated overview of the site: what it is, and links to its most useful pages with short descriptions. It was proposed by Jeremy Howard of Answer.AI in September 2024. A companion file, often called llms-full.txt, can contain the full text of key documentation in one place.
llms.txt is not an official web standard and is not a replacement for robots.txt: it does not grant or block access to anything. It is simply a map written for machines that read Markdown well. Adoption is strongest among documentation sites and developer tools.
Why it matters for SEO
llms.txt costs little to publish and can help AI assistants and agents that choose to read it find a site's canonical pages quickly. Its impact on visibility is unproven: Google has said it does not use llms.txt for Search, so it should be treated as a low-effort extra, not a ranking tactic. The fundamentals of crawlable, well-structured pages matter far more.
Example
A SaaS company publishes /llms.txt starting with "# Acme Invoicing", a one-line blockquote summary, then sections such as "## Docs" and "## Pricing", each listing links like "- [API authentication](https://acme.example/docs/auth): how to create and rotate API keys". An AI coding assistant asked about Acme's API can read that file and jump straight to the right page.
Free tools for llms.txt
Put the theory to work
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