llms.txt is a proposed Markdown file at the root of a website that gives large language models a short, clean map of the site's most useful pages. It was proposed in September 2024 by Jeremy Howard of Answer.AI. It is not an official web standard, and no major search engine has said it uses it for ranking, but it costs almost nothing to publish and helps any tool that does read it.
What goes in the file
The proposal describes a Markdown file with a single H1 naming the site, a short blockquote summary, optional paragraphs of context, and H2 sections containing lists of links, each with a short note. A section titled Optional marks links that can be skipped when context is tight.
Some sites also publish llms-full.txt with the full text of key pages in Markdown, so a tool can read everything in one request.
- # Company name
- > One sentence on what you do, for whom and where
- ## Products, ## Services, ## Pricing, ## Docs
- - [Page title](https://...): what the page answers
- ## Optional for lower priority links
What llms.txt will not do
It will not lift Google rankings, unlock AI Overviews or override robots.txt. If a crawler is blocked, it cannot read llms.txt either. Treat it like a well-organised table of contents for machines, not a lever.
Keep it honest and current. Listing pages that redirect or no longer exist undermines the one thing the file is for.
How we write one
Start from the questions buyers ask, then link the page that best answers each: what you do, pricing, main products or services, industries, locations, security and contact. Keep notes factual and short.
XDQ xAgents' AI Visibility agent checks whether a site has llms.txt and, when it does not, drafts one from the site's own pages for a person to review.
Frequently asked questions
Is llms.txt a standard?
No. It is a community proposal published in September 2024. Some AI tools and documentation platforms support it, but it has no formal standards status.
Does Google use llms.txt?
Google's May 2026 guide to AI search does not mention llms.txt and points site owners to normal SEO fundamentals instead.
Where should llms.txt live?
At the root of the domain, for example https://example.com/llms.txt, served as plain text.
What is llms-full.txt?
An optional companion file that contains the full Markdown text of a site's key pages, so a tool can read them in one request.
Sources
- The /llms.txt file, llmstxt.org, 2024
- Google's new guide for AI search: what SEO really needs now, PPC Land, 2026
