More and more people ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini instead of Google. Those systems read websites differently from a search engine. llms.txt is a proposal to help them.
What is it?
A plain text file in a fixed place: yoursite.com/llms.txt. It says, in short and clear language, who you are, what you do and which pages matter most, with links. It's written in Markdown, so both people and language models read it easily.
The idea came from Jeremy Howard (Answer.AI) in 2024. It resembles robots.txt, with a different purpose: robots.txt says what a crawler may not do, llms.txt points out what's worth reading.
What isn't it?
- Not a guarantee. It's a proposed standard, not an official one. Not every AI system reads it, and at the time of writing the major providers haven't confirmed they use it.
- Not a substitute for a good site. An AI can only describe you well if your pages are clear themselves: clear headings, real answers to real questions, and consistent business details.
Do you need it?
Short answer: it costs little and does no harm, but it's the last piece, not the first.
What comes first:
- A fast site with a logical structure and one clear H1 per page.
- Structured data (schema markup) for your business, your services and your FAQs.
- The same name, address and contact details everywhere.
After that, an llms.txt is a quarter of an hour's work. This site has one too: see it here.
Want to know where your site stands? Read more about AI visibility.