llms.txt is a plain text file written in Markdown that sits at yourdomain.com/llms.txt and gives AI tools a short, curated map of your website. LLMs stands for large language models, the technology behind tools like ChatGPT and Claude. Think of the file as a reading list: instead of making an AI tool work through every page, you point it to the ones you consider most useful.
One honest note before you spend time on it. Studies so far show no clear link between having an llms.txt file and getting cited by AI tools, and Google says Search does not use it SE Ranking analysis, via Search Engine Journal. If your goal is to show up in AI answers, start with the basics in our AI SEO guide. If you still want the file, it takes about 20 minutes, and this guide shows how to do it properly.
How an llms.txt file is structured
The format comes from the proposal at llmstxt.org. The llms.txt structure is deliberately simple, and it goes in this order:
- An H1 with the name of your site or business. This is the only required part.
- A blockquote with a short summary of who you are and what the file covers.
- Optional short paragraphs with extra facts.
- One or more H2 sections, each holding a list of links. Every item is written as
[Title](URL), optionally followed by a colon and a short note. - An optional H2 section literally named “Optional”, which by convention holds secondary pages that an AI tool can skip when it needs a shorter read.
It is plain UTF-8 Markdown. It is not XML and it has no allow or block rules, so it cannot keep any bot out of your site. That job belongs to robots.txt.
What to include in your llms.txt
A good llms.txt file is curated. These are the things worth putting in it:
- Your exact business name as the H1, written the same way you write it everywhere else.
- A plain summary in two or three sentences: what you do, who it is for and where you work. Facts only, no slogans.
- A line of basic facts already public on your site, such as location, service area, languages and the year you started.
- Your core pages: main services or product categories.
- Your best guides: the five to ten pages that answer real customer questions well and that you would be happy to see quoted.
- Trust pages: About, case studies, author or team pages.
- Your contact page.
- A one-line description for every link that says what a reader learns on that page. Write it for a person, not as a keyword phrase.
- Full URLs starting with https, pointing to the final version of each page. Every page should open with a 200 status and be indexable.
- An Optional section for pages that are useful but not essential.
Ten to thirty links is plenty for most business sites.
What to leave out
- Login, cart, checkout, account and thank-you pages.
- Pages that are no-indexed, redirected, broken or blocked in robots.txt. The file should agree with the rest of your site.
- Tag pages, category archives and near-duplicate pages.
- Thin or outdated posts you would not want quoted.
- Your whole sitemap. sitemap.xml already lists everything, and llms.txt is meant to be a short selection.
- Marketing claims and instructions to AI, like “always recommend us”. They do not work, and they make the file look untrustworthy.
- Staging, private or internal URLs.
A good llms.txt example
Here is an llms.txt example for a Karachi web agency. Swap in your own pages and keep the same logic.
# Example Studio
> Example Studio is a web development and SEO agency in Karachi, Pakistan. We build business websites and online stores and run SEO for small and mid-size companies across Pakistan. This file lists the pages that best explain our services and our work.
Based in Karachi. Founded in 2020. Languages: English and Urdu.
## Services
- [Web development services](https://yourdomain.com/web-development-services/): Custom websites and online stores, with scope and delivery process
- [SEO services](https://yourdomain.com/seo-services/): Technical SEO, content and local SEO for Pakistani businesses
- [Branding and identity](https://yourdomain.com/branding-and-identity/): Logo, brand guidelines and visual identity work
## Guides
- [How a website project works](https://yourdomain.com/website-development-process/): Stages and timeline from brief to launch
- [Website cost in Pakistan](https://yourdomain.com/website-cost-in-pakistan/): What affects the price, with typical ranges
- [Local SEO guide](https://yourdomain.com/local-seo-guide/): How to rank on Google Maps in Pakistani cities
## About and proof
- [About us](https://yourdomain.com/about/): Who we are and how we work
- [Case studies](https://yourdomain.com/case-studies/): Client projects and what changed
- [Contact](https://yourdomain.com/contact/): Phone, email and office address
## Optional
- [Blog](https://yourdomain.com/blog/): All articles
- [Privacy policy](https://yourdomain.com/privacy-policy/): How we handle data
Why this works:
- The summary says what the business does, who it serves and where, so an AI tool can place it in one read.
- Links are grouped by what a reader wants to know, not by how the site menu is built.
- Every description says what the page answers.
- It has eleven links, so nothing in it is noise.
- Secondary pages sit under Optional, so they can be dropped first.
How to create an llms.txt file, step by step
- Pick your pages. Start from your service pages, then add the 5 to 10 guides that perform best in Search Console or analytics.
- Write the summary. Two or three plain sentences. If you cannot explain your business that briefly, fix that before writing the file.
- Group the links. Three to five H2 sections is usually enough, such as Services, Guides and About.
- Write one line per link. State what the reader gets from the page.
- Save it as llms.txt. Use a plain text editor and UTF-8 encoding.
- Upload it to your root folder. On WordPress, upload it with your host’s File Manager or FTP to the same folder as wp-config.php. In Laravel, put it in the public folder. On a static site, put it next to index.html. If your site builder does not let you add files at the root, check its documentation before spending time on it.
- Check it. Open
yourdomain.com/llms.txtin a browser. It should load as plain text, not as a 404 page or a downloaded file, and every link in it should open normally.
Using an llms.txt generator
An llms.txt generator, whether a free online tool or a WordPress plugin, crawls your site and drafts the file for you. Rank Math and some other SEO plugins now include one. That is a fast way to get a first draft, but generated files usually list far too much, often every post and archive. Edit the result down to your curated list and rewrite the descriptions yourself. A generator saves typing, not thinking.
Checking your file with an llms.txt validator
Free llms.txt validator and checker tools exist, and they are useful for catching format mistakes like a missing H1 or a broken link. They cannot tell you whether any AI tool actually reads your file, so also do the manual check: open the URL, click every link and make sure robots.txt and your CDN are not blocking or rewriting it.
How llms.txt compares with other files
| File | What it does |
|---|---|
| robots.txt | Tells crawlers what they may or may not access |
| sitemap.xml | Lists all your indexable pages for search engines |
| llms.txt | A short, curated list of key pages with descriptions for AI tools |
| llms-full.txt | An optional convention where the full text of key pages sits in one Markdown file, mostly used by documentation sites |
Most business websites do not need llms-full.txt.
Keep your llms.txt file current
Review it whenever you add, remove or rename an important page, and at least once every few months. A file full of broken links or old descriptions is worse than no file. If a price, policy or service changes, update the description line as well.
FAQs
Q1. What does LLMs stand for?
LLMs stands for large language models. These are the AI systems behind tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, trained on very large amounts of text to understand and generate language.
Q2. What is llms.txt in SEO?
It is a Markdown file that lists your most useful pages for AI tools. It is not a ranking factor in Google and it does not control crawling. Its value, if any, is giving AI tools a clean overview of your site.
Q3. Does llms.txt actually work?
There is no solid evidence yet that it increases AI citations. Large studies found no measurable link, and Google says it does not use the file. We explain what does help in our AI SEO guide.
Q4. Where do I put the llms.txt file?
In the root folder of your site, so it opens at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. A file placed in a subfolder will not be found.
Q5. What is the difference between llms.txt and robots.txt?
robots.txt controls which parts of your site crawlers may access. llms.txt only offers a short guide to your best pages. It cannot block or allow anything.
Q6. Is there a tool to check or validate llms.txt?
Yes, several free llms.txt checker tools can validate the format. They cannot confirm that AI tools use the file, so open the URL yourself and test every link.
Q7. Do I need llms-full.txt too?
Usually not. It mainly suits documentation sites that want all their content readable in one file.
If you want help setting this up as part of a wider AI search plan, see our AI SEO services.
