What the file looks like
The format is simple: a title, a one-paragraph summary in a quote block, and sections with links to key pages, each with a short description. It lives at /llms.txt.
# Example Studio
> Example Studio designs and builds websites and online shops
> for small businesses in Slovenia and Austria.
## Services
- [Website design](https://www.example.com/websites): custom sites, 2-4 weeks
- [Online shops](https://www.example.com/shops): WooCommerce and Shopify
## Company
- [About](https://www.example.com/about): team, location, contact detailsWho actually uses it
It is not a web standard, and none of the major search engines has committed to using it for ranking or for AI answers. Google has said that its AI features need no special files, and that normal SEO practice is what matters.
Where it does help today is with developer tools and AI coding assistants that read documentation sites, and with tools where a user points an assistant at a site directly. Some documentation platforms generate it automatically for that reason.
When it is worth adding
- You run documentation, an API or a product with many help pages: yes, it is useful and cheap.
- You have a small business site: optional. It takes fifteen minutes and cannot hurt, but do not expect traffic from it.
- You are hoping it will fix poor AI visibility: no. Crawl access, clear content and structured data matter far more.
How to do it well
- Keep it short and factual: who you are, what you offer, where you operate, how to contact you.
- Link only to canonical, indexable pages and keep the links working.
- Update it when your offer changes, the same way you update your sitemap.
- Serve it as plain text with a 200 status, not as an HTML page or a redirect to your homepage.
What Sitequiry checks
The analysis requests /llms.txt and reports whether a real text file is present. It ignores sites that answer every missing URL with their homepage, so a false "found" does not raise your score. Because the file is optional, its absence only has a small effect on the AEO score.
Frequently asked questions
Does llms.txt improve Google rankings?
No. Google does not use it for ranking or for AI Overviews.
Is llms.txt the same as robots.txt?
No. robots.txt controls crawler access. llms.txt only describes content and grants or blocks nothing.
What is llms-full.txt?
An optional companion file that contains the full text of the key pages in Markdown, mainly used by documentation sites.
Check your own site in about a minute
The free analysis measures the points from this guide on your URL and shows what to fix first.