What llms.txt is and why your website should have one in the age of AI
llms.txt is a proposal to publish a Markdown summary at the root of your website to help AI agents understand your site. What it is, its format and its limits.
When an AI agent visits your website to answer a question, it finds the same thing a hurried visitor does: menus, banners, buttons, cookies, scripts. It has to guess where the important part is. Sometimes it guesses right. Sometimes it answers with incomplete information about your business.
llms.txt is a simple proposal to solve that: a text file on your website that tells the AI, without noise, who you are and where the important things are. This site has one at /llms.txt.
What is llms.txt?
It is a proposal to standardize an /llms.txt file that gives AI agents useful information about a website. According to llmstxt.org, Jeremy Howard proposed it on September 3, 2024. The reason is simple: web pages are made for people, with navigation and ads that make it hard to extract the essentials.
The file offers brief context, guidance and links to more detailed files so agents find what they need efficiently.
What format does an llms.txt have?
It is a Markdown file with a defined structure. According to the specification, in this order:
| Element | Required? | Example |
|---|---|---|
| H1 title with the site's name | Yes, it is the only required element | # tumarcaviral.com |
| Blockquote with a short summary | Recommended | > Digital strategy agency... |
| Detail sections without headings | Optional | A paragraph about what the company does |
| H2 sections with lists of links | Optional | ## Services and below it [Kommo CRM](url): description |
Each list item has a Markdown link and, optionally, a colon and a note. The file goes at the root of the site (/llms.txt) or in a subpath, such as /docs/llms.txt.
Does llms.txt help me appear on Google or ChatGPT?
It is not a requirement, but it is one more aid to being understood. To be honest: Google states in its guide on AI features that no special machine-readable files are needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. What matters there is good old SEO.
So why have one? Because more and more agents, assistants and developer tools read the web on their own, and a clean, up-to-date summary reduces the risk that they describe your business wrongly. Even the MCP documentation publishes its own; we explain it in what MCP is.
Common mistake: writing the llms.txt once and forgetting it. If your services, prices or locations change and the file does not, you are giving the AI old information. Ideally it is generated automatically from the site's data, as we do here.
What should a business's llms.txt include?
- Name and summary: what the company does and for whom.
- Locations and contact: the same data as on your website and your Google Business Profile.
- Services with a link to each page.
- Reference content: guides and articles that answer frequently asked questions.
And do not forget the basics: that your robots.txt and your firewall allow AI crawlers, as we explain in what GEO is, and that your pages have structured data.
In short
llms.txt is a simple file that hands the AI a clean summary of your website: title, summary and links to what matters. It is not a Google requirement and it does not replace SEO, but it helps agents describe your business correctly instead of guessing among menus and banners. We generate it automatically in our SEO and GEO with AI service.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the llms.txt file go?
According to the proposal, at the root path of the site (/llms.txt) or in a subpath, for example /docs/llms.txt.
What is required in an llms.txt?
According to the specification, the only required section is an H1 title with the name of the project or site. It is recommended to add a summary and lists of links.
Does Google use llms.txt?
Google states that no special machine-readable files are needed to appear in its AI features. llms.txt is an independent proposal that some agents and tools make use of.
Does it replace the sitemap or robots.txt?
No. The sitemap tells search engines which pages exist and robots.txt what they can crawl; llms.txt summarizes the site for AI agents.
Do not stop at the theory: apply it to your business
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