Llms.txt: a practical guide for your website
Since late 2024, a new file has been appearing in the root of more and more websites: llms.txt. It is intended as a kind of “sitemap for AI models”. But does it actually work, or is it mostly hype? We looked into it and set out the practical details for you.
What exactly is llms.txt?
Llms.txt is a plain-text or Markdown file that you place at yoursite.com/llms.txt. It gives AI crawlers (such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot) a curated overview of your most important pages: title, short description and link.
The idea comes from Jeremy Howard (founder of answer.ai) and is intended to complement robots.txt — not replace it.
User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /blog/
Disallow: /account/
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Allow: /
There is also an llms-full.txt variant: a more extensive version with full content, used mainly by developer tools such as Zapier and Cloudflare for their documentation.
Does it really work?
To be honest, the evidence is thin. Researcher Ana Fernández tracked 10 sites with llms.txt and saw no measurable difference in AI visibility. At the same time, crawl logs show that ChatGPT's user agent does sometimes visit the file.
Our conclusion: llms.txt is not a silver bullet, but it is not a risk either. It takes a few minutes to set up and does no harm. Treat it as a cheap insurance policy, not as your core strategy.
What should you focus on instead?
Content that actually gets cited in AI answers (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity) has different characteristics from content that only ranks:
- Direct answers in the first paragraphs — AI models are more likely to cite text from the top of a page
- FAQ schema markup — makes your questions and answers machine-readable, increasing the chance that a model uses them
- Up-to-date content — pages that are updated regularly stay visible more often than pages that are years old
- Authority beyond your own site — reviews, guest articles and mentions elsewhere count
Want a deeper understanding of how GEO works as a whole? Read our explanation of what GEO actually involves.
Step by step: implementing llms.txt
- Create a text file with a short introduction to your business (1–2 sentences)
- List your most important pages with a title + one-line description + link
- Place the file at
yoursite.com/llms.txt - Optionally reference it from your robots.txt
- Check every quarter that the list is still up to date
Conclusion
Implementing llms.txt takes 15 minutes and is low-hanging fruit. But focus your energy mainly on what has actually been proven to make a difference: clear structure, fast direct answers and up-to-date, authoritative content. That is what AI models actually base their selections on.
If you would rather not handle it alone, look for a geo agency with transparent geo pricing and proven ai visibility services.