Technical GEO
RRonnie Huss
2026-01-01 8 min read

llms.txt Examples: What Good Files Look Like (and What to Avoid)

Key takeaway: llms.txt is a plain Markdown file at yourdomain.com/llms.txt that gives AI systems a curated summary of your most important pages. It is a community proposal, not an official standard. Google has confirmed it does not use llms.txt, so it will not help you in AI Over

Key takeaway: llms.txt is a plain Markdown file at yourdomain.com/llms.txt that gives AI systems a curated summary of your most important pages. It is a community proposal, not an official standard. Google has confirmed it does not use llms.txt, so it will not help you in AI Overviews. Some other AI platforms may read it, adoption is growing but unproven, and it costs almost nothing to add. Treat it as a low-cost tidy-up, not a ranking shortcut.

If you have spent any time in AI search circles, you have probably heard of llms.txt. You have probably also heard wildly different claims about it: that it is essential, that it is a waste of time, that it gets you into ChatGPT. The truth sits in the middle, and this guide gives it to you straight, along with correctly formatted examples you can adapt for your own business.

What is llms.txt?

llms.txt is a Markdown file hosted at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. It gives AI systems a concise, curated index of your site: who you are, and which pages best represent what you do. The format was proposed by Jeremy Howard of Answer.AI in September 2024, and the specification lives at llmstxt.org.

The reasoning behind it is simple. AI systems have limited context windows, and parsing a full HTML page means wading through navigation, scripts and styling. A clean Markdown summary lets them get to the substance.

Two honest caveats before the examples:

Google does not use it. Google’s official guide to optimising for its generative AI features says llms.txt is not needed for AI Overviews or AI Mode. If Google is your main concern, this file does nothing for you. Our own audit re-weighted llms.txt for exactly this reason.

Adoption elsewhere is real but unproven. Thousands of sites now serve one, including major developer-tool and documentation companies, and some AI crawlers request the file. But no major AI platform has published confirmation of how, or whether, it influences recommendations. There is no solid public evidence yet that llms.txt drives citations for a typical small business.

So why bother? Because it takes twenty minutes, costs nothing, carries no downside, and forces you to do something genuinely valuable anyway: write a clear, prioritised, plain-English summary of what your business is and which pages matter. If AI platforms formalise support, you are ready. If they do not, you have lost twenty minutes.

The correct format

llms.txt is Markdown with a specific structure:

A common mistake is inventing your own layout with custom headers and dividers. AI systems parsing the file expect the documented structure, so stick to it.

A basic llms.txt template

`# Acme Design Studio

Independent brand and web design studio in Bristol, working with ambitious small businesses across the UK since 2014.

Main pages

Guides

Optional

llms.txt examples by business type

Professional services firm (accountant, solicitor, consultant)

`# Bridgewater Accountancy

Chartered accountancy firm in Manchester specialising in tax planning and year-end accounts for owner-managed businesses.

Main pages

Guides

What to avoid: do not list every service sub-page. Keep the file to roughly 10 to 20 links. Quality over quantity.

E-commerce brand

`# Nordo Outdoor

UK outdoor gear brand founded in 2019, making technical hiking and camping equipment more accessible.

Products

About

Guides

Local business (photographer, dentist, salon)

`# Kate Morris Photography

Wedding and portrait photographer based in Surrey, covering Greater London and the South East. 12 years of experience.

Main pages

Common mistakes to avoid

1. Inventing your own format. Custom section dividers, plain-text layouts and homemade structures are the most common failure. Use the Markdown structure from the specification: H1, blockquote, H2 sections, bulleted links.

2. Copying your XML sitemap line for line. Your sitemap lists every URL. Your llms.txt should list the 10 to 20 that represent your business to a stranger.

3. Descriptions that just repeat the page title. “Services: Services” tells an AI nothing. Write “Brand identity, web design and SEO for ambitious small businesses.”

4. Blocking AI crawlers in robots.txt, then wondering why you are invisible. If your robots.txt blocks an AI crawler, that crawler never sees your llms.txt or anything else. Check robots.txt first; it matters far more than this file.

5. Letting it rot. A file pointing at dead pages is worse than no file. Review it quarterly or after any restructure.

llms.txt and robots.txt are different jobs

robots.txt controls whether crawlers may access your site at all. llms.txt suggests what your most important content is. They must be consistent: an llms.txt behind a robots.txt block is invisible.

Check your robots.txt allows the main AI crawlers:

`User-agent: GPTBot Allow: /

User-agent: ClaudeBot Allow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot Allow: /If any of these are set toDisallow: /`, fix that before touching llms.txt. Crawler access is the signal with teeth; llms.txt is the optional extra.

How to create and test yours

  1. Write the file in plain Markdown following the structure above

  2. Save it as llms.txt and upload it to your site root so yourdomain.com/llms.txt resolves directly

  3. Visit the URL in a browser and confirm it loads (HTTP 200) as raw text

  4. Review it whenever your key pages change, and at least quarterly

There is no submission process. AI systems that look for the file find it at the standard location.

Quick checklist

Frequently asked questions

Does Google use llms.txt?

No. Google’s official guidance on optimising for its generative AI features states that llms.txt is not needed for AI Overviews or AI Mode. If Google AI visibility is your goal, focus on crawlability, content quality and structured data instead.

Which AI systems do use llms.txt?

It is a community proposal rather than an official standard, and no major AI platform has published confirmation of exactly how it uses the file. Adoption is strongest among developer-tool and documentation sites. Some AI crawlers request the file, so a correct one may help, and a missing one carries no penalty.

Is llms.txt worth doing for a small business?

It costs about twenty minutes and nothing else, and the exercise of writing a clear, prioritised summary of your business is valuable in itself. Do it after the fixes with proven impact: crawler access, structured data, and clear, specific content.

Where does llms.txt go?

At the root of your domain: yourdomain.com/llms.txt. It must be directly accessible as a plain Markdown file.

Continue Reading