What Is llms.txt — and Why Your Business Should Have One

llms.txt is a simple text file you place on your website that gives AI models a short, tidy summary of who you are, what you offer, and where the most important pages live. Think of it as a fact sheet written for machines: instead of ChatGPT or Perplexity having to guess based on your entire website, they get the facts handed to them clearly and directly. It doesn't guarantee you'll be cited — but it makes it far easier for AI to represent you accurately.

In short

• llms.txt is a machine-readable text file in the root of your website (yourdomain.com/llms.txt).
• It summarises your business, services, prices, and key pages — short and to the point.
• The goal: make it easy for AI models to understand and represent facts about you correctly.
• It's a GEO tool, not an SEO replacement — robots.txt is for search crawlers, llms.txt is for language models.
• It only helps if the facts are correct and kept up to date.

Why does llms.txt exist at all?

A website is built for people: menus, animations, marketing copy, images. An AI model trying to understand what your business actually does has to wade through all of it and guess. Sometimes it guesses wrong — wrong price, wrong service, wrong location.

llms.txt solves this by giving the model a clean source to rely on. It's the same principle as robots.txt, but for a new audience: where robots.txt tells search crawlers what they're allowed to do, llms.txt gives language models a concise, correct summary they can trust.

What should an llms.txt contain?

A good llms.txt is short, fact-heavy, and free of fluff. The most important parts:

• Who you are. Name, what the business does, where it's based, company registration number.
• Your services. A list with short descriptions and prices, linking to the relevant pages.
• Key pages. The most important links: services, pricing, contact, about us.
• Facts that set you apart. What's true and verifiable — offices, reviews, certifications.
• What you don't do. Honesty about your limits builds trust, even with a model.

Write it as if you were explaining the business to a smart person who has ten seconds. No marketing jargon — just clear facts.

A small example of the form

An llms.txt is plain text with simple headings. The structure typically looks like this:

Section	Content
Title + one sentence	Who you are, in a single line
Quick facts	Address, registration number, contact
Services	A list with price and link per service
Pages	The most important URLs
Last updated	A visible date

The point isn't a specific format, but that a machine can easily pick out the right information.

Common mistakes

Three things that keep llms.txt from working as intended:

1. It isn't linked or announced. The file exists, but nobody knows about it. It should be referenced from robots.txt and ideally from the site's head.
2. The facts are outdated. Old prices or services that no longer exist do more harm than good — a model may repeat the error as truth.
3. It contradicts the rest of the site. If llms.txt says one price and the website says another, the model doesn't know which to believe. The facts have to line up everywhere.

llms.txt is one tool, not the whole job

An llms.txt alone won't make you visible in ChatGPT. It's one piece of a bigger picture about being a credible, well-structured source — what we call GEO, or AI search optimisation. If you want to go about it systematically, we've written a dedicated guide to becoming visible in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.

Want someone to look over how your business comes across to AI models today — and set up an llms.txt that actually holds up? Have a quick chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is llms.txt, in plain terms?

A short text file in the root of your website that gives AI models a tidy summary of who the business is, what it offers, and where the key pages live — so AI can represent the facts about you correctly.

Is llms.txt the same as robots.txt?

No. robots.txt tells search crawlers what they're allowed to visit. llms.txt gives language models a concise, correct summary of the business. They solve different problems for different machines.

Does llms.txt make me visible in ChatGPT?

It helps, but guarantees nothing. It makes it easier for AI to understand and represent you accurately. Visibility also depends on structure, credibility, and the authority of the rest of your website.

Where do I put the llms.txt file?

In the root of your domain, so it's available at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. It should also be referenced from robots.txt so the models find it.

How often should it be updated?

Whenever services or prices change. An outdated llms.txt can lead an AI to repeat incorrect facts about your business, so keep it in step with the rest of your website.