llms.txt
What is llms.txt?
llms.txt is a proposed standard: a Markdown file served at /llms.txt that gives large language models a concise, curated guide to a site's most important pages. Think of it as a hand-built table of contents for machines — it lists key URLs with short descriptions so a model can find authoritative content without crawling everything.
A typical llms.txt opens with the site name and a one-line summary, then groups links under headings (Docs, Products, Guides) with a sentence describing each. Some sites also publish an llms-full.txt that inlines the full text of key pages for models that ingest it directly.
llms.txt is not yet an official web standard and major engines have not committed to reading it universally, so treat it as a low-cost, forward-looking signal rather than a guaranteed ranking factor. It costs little to publish and keeps your most valuable content easy for models to locate.
Why it matters
It's the robots.txt of the AI era — a direct signal to models about what on your site matters and how to read it.
llms.txt — FAQ
Where does llms.txt go?
At the root of your domain, e.g. https://example.com/llms.txt, served as plain text/Markdown.
Do AI engines actually read llms.txt?
It's an emerging proposal, not a ratified standard, and adoption varies. It's a cheap, forward-looking signal — publish it, but don't rely on it as a guaranteed ranking factor.
What's the difference between llms.txt and llms-full.txt?
llms.txt is a curated index of links with descriptions; llms-full.txt inlines the actual content of those pages so a model can ingest it without fetching each URL.
Related terms
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
Answer Engine Optimization is the practice of structuring content so AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews cite it directly.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Generative Engine Optimization is optimizing content to appear in and influence AI-generated answers from tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and AI Overviews.
robots.txt
robots.txt is a file at your site root that tells crawlers — including AI crawlers — which paths they may or may not request.
Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Structured data is machine-readable code (usually JSON-LD) that labels page content so search and answer engines understand it precisely.
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