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llms.txt: what it is and whether you need it
By Visibility Audit Co. Published October 28, 2026.
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/llms.txt that gives AI tools a short summary of your site and links to your most important pages. It takes about 30 minutes to add and does no harm, but it's not an official standard, and no major AI search engine has publicly committed to using it for rankings or citations. Fix robots.txt access, crawlable HTML and third-party presence first; then add llms.txt as a cheap extra.What goes in an llms.txt file
The proposal (llmstxt.org) suggests:
- An H1 with your product or company name
- A one-paragraph blockquote summary of what you do and who it's for
- H2 sections listing key pages as Markdown links with one-line descriptions (docs, pricing, comparisons, FAQ)
- An optional "Optional" section for less important links
Example for a small SaaS
# ExampleApp
> ExampleApp is a scheduling tool for small consulting teams. Plans start at $X/month.
## Key pages
- [Pricing](https://example.com/pricing): plans and limits
- [ExampleApp vs Calendly](https://example.com/vs/calendly): differences and tradeoffs
- [Docs](https://example.com/docs): setup and integrations
Do you need it?
- Do it if: you have docs or an API that developers query through AI coding tools, or you want a single, accurate summary of your product facts.
- Don't expect: llms.txt to fix being blocked in robots.txt, a JavaScript-only site, or missing reviews and comparison coverage. Those matter more.
Higher-priority checks before llms.txt
- Your robots.txt doesn't block search and user-fetch bots (OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot).
- Key pages render their text in server HTML, not only after JavaScript runs.
- Your pages carry Organization and SoftwareApplication (or Product) JSON-LD with accurate facts.
- You're accurately listed on the review and comparison sites that AI answers cite for your category.
Not sure where you stand? The $49 AI Visibility Snapshot checks AI-crawler access, schema and llms.txt, and tests 10 buyer prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews.
FAQ
Is llms.txt an official standard?
No. It's a community proposal published at llmstxt.org, not a W3C or IETF standard.
Does llms.txt replace robots.txt or sitemap.xml?
No. robots.txt controls crawler access and sitemap.xml lists URLs for indexing. llms.txt is a human-readable summary for AI tools.
Will adding llms.txt get me cited by ChatGPT?
Nobody can promise that. No major AI search provider has publicly said it uses llms.txt for citations, so treat it as a low-cost extra rather than a fix.
Where should the file live?
At the root of your domain, for example https://example.com/llms.txt, served as plain text or Markdown.