Term
llms.txt
Updated · 2 min read · By The ParSEO team
The short answer
A proposed markdown file at a site's root that summarises the site and links to its key pages for AI tools.
llms.txt is a proposal published in 2024 for a markdown file at /llms.txt that gives large language models a clean summary of a site: its name, a short description, and grouped links to the most useful pages. Some sites also publish /llms-full.txt with the full text of key pages.
It isn't an official web standard, and the major search engines haven't said they use it for ranking or citations. It doesn't control crawling either; robots.txt does that. Think of it as a cheap, harmless convenience for tools that read it, after the basics are right.
In practice
In practice, adding one takes a few minutes: a title with your business name, a one-sentence summary, and short lists of links to your key pages with a few words on each. Keep it in step with your site, and remember it's an extra, not a substitute for clear pages that search engines can index.
Sources
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