llms.txt is a proposed standard for a plain text Markdown file, placed at the root of a website (yoursite.com/llms.txt), that gives large language models a short summary of the site and links to its most useful pages. It is a community proposal, not an official requirement from Google or any major search engine.
Why It Matters for Your Website
The idea is simple. AI tools struggle with cluttered pages full of navigation, scripts and cookie banners. An llms.txt file offers a clean map instead: who you are, what you sell, and which pages explain it best. The format is described at llmstxt.org.
Be realistic about it. Support across AI providers is uneven, and Google representatives have said Google Search does not use it. Adding one is cheap and low risk, so it can be a sensible small step. It will not fix a site that is unclear, slow or hard to crawl, and anyone selling it as a shortcut to AI visibility is overselling it.
For a marketing lead, the more useful outcome is the exercise behind the file. Writing a two sentence summary of the company and choosing the ten pages that best explain it tends to expose problems: pages that contradict each other, products described three different ways, or key information that only exists in a sales deck. Those are worth fixing whether or not any AI tool ever reads the file.
A typical file is short. It has a title line with your company name, a brief summary, and a few sections of links with one line descriptions, for example Products, Customers and Company. Some sites also publish a longer companion file with fuller page content, but that is optional.
What Good Looks Like
The file lives at /llms.txt and returns a normal 200 response as plain text.
It opens with your company name and a one or two sentence summary that matches how your homepage describes you.
It links to a short, curated set of pages: product or service pages, pricing, case studies, docs and contact.
Every link in it works and points to a live, indexable page.
Someone owns it, and it gets updated when you launch, rename or retire a product.
It sits alongside a sound robots.txt and sitemap, not in place of them.
Questions to Ask an Agency
Which AI tools actually read llms.txt today, and how do you know?
What will you include, and what will you leave out on purpose?
How will this file stay accurate after launch?
What else are you doing for AI and search visibility beyond this file?
Will you add it in a way our team can edit without a developer?
How Goodspeed Handles It
We treat llms.txt as a small, low cost addition, not a strategy. During our Tune-Up audit we check whether your site is readable by search and AI crawlers, fix the issues that matter more, and add a clean llms.txt if it makes sense for you. You get the file, a note on what it does and does not do, and a simple way to keep it current.
Related Terms
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
Schema Markup
Website Audit