What is llms.txt?
A plain-text file some sites now publish to give AI tools a short map of what they are. Here's what it does, what it doesn't, and a live one you can copy.
The short version
llms.txt is a file you put
at yourdomain.com/llms.txt.
It's plain Markdown: an H1 with your name, a one-line summary, then a handful of linked sections pointing
an AI tool at the pages that actually explain your product. It was proposed in 2024 as a lightweight way
to hand language models better context than an HTML page and its ads, nav, and scripts give them.
It is not confirmed to be read by ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's crawlers today. Treat it the way you'd treat a well-written About page for a machine reader: cheap to add, plausible to matter more later, not something to expect a ranking or citation lift from on its own.
Simplitas's own file
Here's ours, live at simplitas.com/llms.txt:
# Simplitas > Simplitas helps B2B brands get cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI — > tracking AI visibility and running the outreach that earns new mentions. ## Product - [AI Brand Mentions](https://www.simplitas.com/ai-brand-mentions): Free audit of where a brand is missing from AI answers, plus generated outreach. - [AI Visibility Check](https://www.simplitas.com/ai-visibility-check): Free brand-ranking scan against 100 real buyer prompts. - [GEO Content](https://www.simplitas.com/geo-content): Editor for onsite content structured to be quoted by AI models. ## Company - [About](https://www.simplitas.com/about) - [Pricing](https://www.simplitas.com/pricing) - [Blog](https://www.simplitas.com/blog)
How to write your own
- 01
Start with an H1 and summary
Your company or product name as the H1, then one blockquote line describing what you do — no marketing copy, just the fact.
- 02
Group links under H2 sections
Product, Docs, Company — whatever sections make sense. Each link gets a one-line description, not a paragraph.
- 03
Keep it short
This is a map, not a sitemap. A dozen links to your most important pages beats an exhaustive list.
- 04
Serve it as plain text
At the root of your domain, with a `text/plain` content type — no auth, no redirect chain.
FAQ
What is llms.txt?
llms.txt is a proposed plain-text file, served at the root of a domain (yourdomain.com/llms.txt), that gives AI crawlers and LLM-based tools a short, curated index of a site: what it is, and links to the pages worth reading. It borrows the idea of robots.txt but for context instead of crawl permissions.
Do ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google actually use llms.txt?
Not confirmed. No major AI lab has published that its crawlers or retrieval systems read llms.txt as of today, and it remains a community-proposed convention rather than an adopted standard. Some AI-native tools and site builders do read it. Because it costs almost nothing to add — a static text file — most teams add it as a hedge, not because it is guaranteed to be read.
What should go in an llms.txt file?
An H1 with your site or company name, a one-line blockquote summary, then H2 sections linking to the pages that best explain what you do — product pages, documentation, key blog posts. Keep it short: it is meant to be a map, not a full sitemap.
Is llms.txt a ranking factor?
No. It is not part of Google's ranking systems and there is no evidence it directly affects AI Overviews or chatbot citations. Its value, if any, is as a clean, low-effort context file for whichever tools choose to read it — the actual work of getting cited still comes from having genuinely citable content and third-party mentions.
llms.txt is the easy part
The work that actually moves an AI answer is getting cited by sites those models already trust. That's what our free audit finds.