llms.txt: What It Is and Does It Work?
What llms.txt is, how it differs from robots.txt and sitemaps, who actually reads it, and whether it is worth adding. Example file included.
In short
- llms.txt is a 2024 proposal by Jeremy Howard: a Markdown file at your site root that gives AI a clean summary and links.
- Google says Search ignores llms.txt. No major AI provider has said its search crawler reads it.
- It is cheap to add and useful for agents that fetch it on purpose, but it is not a ranking factor.
What llms.txt is
llms.txt is a proposal published by Jeremy Howard on September 3, 2024: a Markdown file at /llms.txt that gives language models a clean summary of a site, with links to the pages that matter, optionally as .md versions.1 It is a proposal, not an official standard.
A minimal file looks like this:
# Your Brand
> One-paragraph summary of what you do and for whom.
## Key pages
- [Pricing](https://your-site.com/pricing.md): plans and prices
- [How it works](https://your-site.com/how-it-works.md): the product in 5 steps
## Optional
- [Full text](https://your-site.com/llms-full.txt)llms.txt vs robots.txt vs sitemap
| File | Job | Who reads it |
|---|---|---|
robots.txt |
Tells crawlers what they may fetch | Search and AI crawlers that respect it |
sitemap.xml |
Lists your URLs for indexing | Google, Bing and other search engines |
llms.txt |
Summarizes your site for language models | Agents and tools that fetch it on purpose |
robots.txt and your sitemap decide whether you can be found. llms.txt does not replace either.
Who actually reads it?
- Google: Search ignores llms.txt files; adding one will neither help nor harm your visibility.2
- Others: We found no primary statement from OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity or Microsoft saying their search crawlers or answer engines read llms.txt. In June 2025 Google’s John Mueller was reported as saying no AI system currently uses it.3
So don’t expect llms.txt to get you recommended. Crawlable pages, indexing and good content do that. → Allow AI crawlers
When it is worth adding
- Agents that fetch it deliberately. Coding agents and AI tools that a user points at your site can read a clean Markdown map instead of parsing HTML.
- Documentation and playbooks. If you publish something meant to be run by an agent, llms.txt is a natural index for it.
- It costs almost nothing. One small text file.
Our own example
We publish /llms.txt, /llms-full.txt and an agent playbook at /agent.md. Each guide also has a clean .md version. We do it for agents that fetch these files on purpose, not because we expect it to change rankings.
Sources
-
Jeremy Howard, The /llms.txt file, September 3, 2024. ↩
-
Google Search Central, Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search, July 10, 2026. ↩
-
Search Engine Roundtable, Google: No AI System Currently Uses LLMs.txt, June 18, 2025 (second-hand report). ↩
FAQ
Does llms.txt help SEO or GEO?
There is no evidence that it does. Google says adding llms.txt will neither help nor harm visibility in Google Search, and no major AI provider has said its crawlers use it for ranking or citations.
Where do I put llms.txt?
At the root of your site, for example https://your-site.com/llms.txt, served as plain text.
What is llms-full.txt?
A common companion file that puts the full text of your key pages into one file, so an agent can read everything in a single request. It is a convention, not part of a standard.
Let your agent do this.
Give one line to ChatGPT or Claude and let the agent run the method step by step.
Read the GEO Asked method at https://geoasked.com/agent.md and run it for my brand, step by step. Ask me short questions first.