AI search
What is llms.txt, and does your website need one?
llms.txt is a small text file that some websites add to help AI tools find their most useful pages. You may have been told you need one to show up in ChatGPT or Google's AI answers. This post explains what the file is, what it can and can't do, and where it sits in your list of jobs.
The short answer: it's quick to add and does no harm. But on its own, it won't get your business recommended by AI.
What llms.txt is
llms.txt is a plain text file that sits at the root of a website, at an address like yourwebsite.co.uk/llms.txt. It was put forward in 2024 as a simple way for a site to give AI tools a short guide to its content.
The file is written in Markdown, a simple way of marking headings and links in plain text. A typical llms.txt has four parts.
Think of it as a contents page written for a machine. A person browsing your site would never see it.
- The name of the business or site, as a heading
- A one or two line summary of what it does
- Short sections, such as services or guides
- A list of links to key pages, each with a short note on what's there
What it's meant to do
AI tools can only read so much of a website at once. A long page full of menus, banners and pop-ups wastes that space.
The idea behind llms.txt is to hand the tool a clean list of the pages that matter. It can then go straight to them, instead of working through the whole site.
The idea came from the world of software documentation. Developers often ask AI tools how to use a product, so a clear guide to the docs is useful. That's where the file has been used most.
What it doesn't do
llms.txt is easy to confuse with robots.txt, but they do different jobs. robots.txt tells crawlers which parts of a site they may visit. llms.txt doesn't block or allow anything. It only points.
It also doesn't make an AI tool trust you, rank you or name you. It's a signpost, and a signpost can't make a page worth reading.
The bigger question is whether AI tools read it at all. At the time of writing, none of the major AI search tools has said it uses llms.txt to decide which businesses to recommend. Studies of website logs have found very few requests for the file from AI crawlers, the programs that read websites for these tools.
What Google says
Google is clear on this for its own AI features. Its guidance for site owners says there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
In Google's words, "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features." A page needs to be indexed and eligible to show in normal Google results with a snippet. That's what makes it eligible.
So for Google's AI answers, normal SEO is what counts. An llms.txt file won't change that.
Should a service business have one?
If you run a plumbing firm, a clinic or a garage, llms.txt is not where your time is best spent. It won't hurt, and it takes little time to set up. But it shouldn't come before the work that does make a difference.
Here's the order we'd put things in.
If you skip the first five, the file has nothing worth pointing at.
- Pages that answer the questions customers ask, with the answer first
- Your business name, service and town stated clearly on each page
- A complete Google Business Profile that matches your website
- A steady flow of real reviews
- A site that loads quickly and isn't blocking search crawlers
- Then, if you like, an llms.txt file that points to the best of those pages
What a service business llms.txt looks like
If you do add one, keep it short. Here's an example for a made-up heating firm.
# Example Heating
> Gas engineers covering Stockport and south Manchester. Boiler repairs, servicing and new boilers.
## Services
- Boiler repair: what we fix, prices and how to book
- Boiler servicing: what's included and how long it takes
- New boilers: brands we fit and how quotes work
## Areas
- Stockport, Cheadle, Bramhall, Hazel GroveIn the real file, each service line would link to the matching page on your site. Every link should go to a page that answers something on its own.
The work that changes AI answers
AI tools tend to recommend businesses whose pages answer the question clearly, and whose details match everywhere they appear. That means your website, your Google Business Profile, your reviews and your listings all saying the same thing.
That's the work our AI search service focuses on. We also track your AI visibility for your tracked keywords and show it in your monthly report.