Guide · AI-readable sites
What is llms.txt, and should you create one?
llms.txt is a Markdown file at the root of your site that lists your key pages for AI models. It takes minutes to add and does no harm, but no major AI engine has confirmed using it to decide which brands to cite.
By the Howseen AI team · Updated November 6, 20263-day free trial, cancel in 1 click. Trial: 3 days, plans from €39 per month. Cancel anytime from your settings.
Definition
What is an llms.txt file?
An llms.txt file is a plain Markdown page at yoursite.com/llms.txt. It gives a model a short summary of your site and a curated list of links, so it can find the right page without reading every page.
The format was proposed by Jeremy Howard on September 3, 2024, at llmstxt.org. The only required part is an H1 with the name of the site. The proposal then suggests a short summary in a blockquote, a few lines of context, sections under H2 headings that each list links, and an Optional section for pages a model can skip.
“Our expectation was that llms.txt would mainly be useful for inference rather than training, and that is how it has been used.”
Inference means the moment a model or an agent looks something up to answer a question. That is where llms.txt has found its use: documentation sites, APIs and developer tools publish one so that AI coding assistants land on the right page.
Video
llms.txt in 2 minutes
llms.txt is a Markdown file at the root of your site that lists your key pages for AI models. It takes minutes and does no harm, but no major AI engine has confirmed using it to decide which brands to cite: Google says no AI text file is needed for AI Overviews, and OpenAI points to robots.txt for ChatGPT search.
Does it work?
Does llms.txt help you appear in ChatGPT or Google?
Not as a ranking signal. Google says no AI text file is needed for its AI features, and OpenAI points site owners to robots.txt, not llms.txt, to appear in ChatGPT search.
- →Google: “You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features”, about AI Overviews and AI Mode (Google Search Central).
- →OpenAI: OAI-SearchBot is the crawler used to surface websites in ChatGPT search, and OpenAI recommends allowing it in robots.txt. Sites that block it do not appear in ChatGPT search answers (OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI crawlers).
- →OpenAI also publishes its own documentation index as an llms.txt file, on the same page: the format is used for docs, by the companies that build the models (OpenAI).
So the honest answer is: llms.txt is good hygiene, like a clean sitemap. It is not what makes an AI recommend you. What does is covered further down.
Compared
llms.txt vs robots.txt vs sitemap.xml
The three files do different jobs. robots.txt controls access, sitemap.xml lists every URL for search engines, and llms.txt is a short reading guide written for AI models.
| What it does | Who reads it | Effect on AI visibility | |
|---|---|---|---|
| robots.txt | Allows or blocks crawlers, page by page | Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot and others | Direct: a blocked crawler cannot cite you |
| sitemap.xml | Lists every URL you want indexed | Search engines | Indirect: helps pages get indexed, which AI search relies on |
| llms.txt | Summarises the site and links the key pages | Some AI agents and coding tools, on request | None confirmed by a major AI engine |
If you only have time for one file, check robots.txt first: our free AI crawler checker shows which AI crawlers your site lets in, and Google explains the rules in its introduction to robots.txt.
Template
An llms.txt template ready to copy
Copy this template, replace the names and links with your own pages, and save it as llms.txt at the root of your site. Ten to twenty links is enough for most sites.
# Your Company > One or two sentences: what you sell, for whom, and where. Write it the way you would want an AI assistant to describe you. Key facts an assistant should get right: founding year, location, main product, plans and prices page. ## Products - [Product page](https://yoursite.com/product): what it does, in one line - [Pricing](https://yoursite.com/pricing): plans and what each one includes ## Guides - [Getting started](https://yoursite.com/guide): the first steps for a new customer - [FAQ](https://yoursite.com/faq): answers to the questions buyers ask most ## Company - [About](https://yoursite.com/about): who is behind the company - [Contact](https://yoursite.com/contact): how to reach the team ## Optional - [Blog](https://yoursite.com/blog): articles and news
Prefer not to write it by hand? Our free llms.txt generator reads your sitemap, writes the file in the llmstxt.org format and checks the one you already have. You can also read the llms.txt of howseen.ai as a real example.
Publishing
How do you add llms.txt to your site?
Save the file as plain text, upload it to the root of your domain, then open yoursite.com/llms.txt in a browser to check that the file shows, not an error page.
Write it
Start from the template above or from the generator. Keep the summary factual: what you sell, for whom, where, and your pricing page.
Upload it to the root
The file must answer at https://yoursite.com/llms.txt, served as plain text. Most hosts and site builders let you add a file at the root or redirect that path to a hosted file.
Check it
Open the URL in a private window. You should see your Markdown, not a 404 or your home page.
Keep it current
Update it when you add a key page or change your prices, like any page an assistant might quote.
What matters more
What matters more than llms.txt?
AI engines cite pages they can crawl and sources that already name you. Allowing the right crawlers, answering buyer questions on your pages and being mentioned on trusted sites move the answer far more. To check whether AI names you today, run the free AI visibility checker.
- →Across 5 engines, our dataset logged 41,711 source links from 5,724 distinct domains. Perplexity cites 17.4 sources per answer, ChatGPT 5.2: each engine builds its short list from a different set of sites.
- →Adding statistics, quotations and cited sources were among the most effective changes measured in the GEO research, which reports gains of up to 40% in visibility (Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024).
- →When a Google AI summary appears, users click a traditional result in 8% of visits against 15% without one (Pew Research Center): being named in the answer is what counts.
Read how AI chooses brands for the full picture, or GEO vs SEO for what changes in the work.
llms.txt, answered
Short answers to the questions people ask most about this topic, each one based on the sources cited on this page.
What is llms.txt?+
llms.txt is a Markdown file placed at the root of a website, at yoursite.com/llms.txt, that gives AI models a short summary of the site and links to its most useful pages. Jeremy Howard proposed the format at llmstxt.org on September 3, 2024.
Does llms.txt help you rank in ChatGPT or Google?+
No major AI engine has confirmed using llms.txt to choose which brands to cite. Google says you do not need AI text files to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and OpenAI asks sites to allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt to appear in ChatGPT search.
Is llms.txt the same as robots.txt?+
No. robots.txt tells crawlers what they may visit, and AI crawlers like OAI-SearchBot follow it. llms.txt does not allow or block anything: it is a reading guide that points models to your best pages.
Should I create an llms.txt file?+
If you have documentation, an API or many pages, yes: it takes minutes and helps AI coding tools and agents find the right page. For a small business site it is optional, and your time is better spent on the pages and mentions AI actually reads.
Where do I put llms.txt?+
At the root of your domain, served as plain text, so that https://yoursite.com/llms.txt opens in a browser. Then check it returns the file and not a 404 or an HTML page.
What is llms-full.txt?+
Some sites, howseen.ai included, also publish an llms-full.txt with the full text of their key pages in one file. It is a convention used alongside llms.txt, not something AI engines require.
See how AI talks about your brand
Howseen tracks your brand across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, shows who gets cited instead of you, and turns each gap into content you can publish.
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