What is llms.txt and does my business need it?

Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini read pages from the internet to answer. A website has much more than the essentials: menus, footers, cookies, scripts. llms.txt began as a simple idea: put at the root of the website a text file, in Markdown format, that says in a few lines what the site is and where to go.

What it is, in simple terms

It is a text file at the address your-site.com/llms.txt. It usually has a title, a description of two or three sentences and lists of links to the most important pages, each with a line explaining what it covers. It is like a book's index, written for a machine to read quickly.

What it is not

• It is not an official standard. It is a proposal from people who work in this field, and not every tool respects it.
• It is not a guarantee. There is no way to know whether an AI tool reads it, nor to turn it into mentions. Whoever promises it "puts the company in ChatGPT" is promising what they do not control.
• It does not replace a good website. The pages are still what matters: if they are clear, the file only helps point to them.

Why it may be worth it anyway

• It costs little: it is a text file.
• It forces you to decide which are the most important pages and to say so in a few words, which is useful even without machines.
• It does no harm: if nobody reads it, nothing is lost.

Our website has one: it is at tmiagency.pt/llms.txt, for anyone who wants to see a real example.

What to put in it

1. Who you are, in two or three sentences: what the company does, for whom and where.
2. The services, each with a link and a one-line description.
3. The contact details, the ones already public on the website.
4. The key pages: about the company, cases, frequently asked questions.
5. The articles that answer real questions, one line each.

What not to put in

• Promises or advertising copy. Whoever reads wants facts.
• Personal data or information that is not already public.
• Links to pages that have changed or no longer exist.

What matters more

More than the file, the pages matter: clear text, direct answers, consistent information (name, address, contact, services) kept up to date. That is the foundation we treat first in Digital Marketing. To see how AI answers change search, read SEO vs GEO, and to test whether your company is already mentioned, how to tell whether ChatGPT mentions your business.

A draft in ten minutes

Open a plain text editor and write, in this order: the company name as a title; two sentences saying what it does and for whom; a list of the services, each with a link and a one-line description; a list of five or six of the most useful pages or articles, also with a link and a line. Save it as llms.txt. Before publishing it, open every link and check it works. When the website changes, go back to the file.

In short

• llms.txt is a text file at the root of the website that summarises the essentials for AI tools.
• It is a proposal, not an official standard, and does not guarantee mentions.
• It costs little and forces you to clarify which pages matter most.
• More than the file, the pages matter: clear, consistent and up to date.

Quick questions

Do I need a developer to create it?

No. It is a text file. Whoever manages the website only needs to place it at the root, next to robots.txt and the sitemap.

Will it put my company in ChatGPT's answers?

There is no guarantee of that. It may help point to the right pages, if a tool reads it, but mentions depend on many other factors.

Is it different from robots.txt?

Yes. robots.txt tells search engines what they may or may not visit; llms.txt is a description of the website for whoever wants to read it.