What Is llms.txt? The New SEO File for AI Crawlers

llms.txt is a proposed web standard that creates a machine-readable file at your domain root (yourdomain.com/llms.txt) to help AI systems understand your website. Think of it as robots.txt for AI crawlers — while robots.txt tells search engine bots which pages to crawl, llms.txt tells AI systems what your site is about, what content it offers, and how it should be represented.

The specification was proposed at llmstxt.org and has gained traction among forward-thinking SEO practitioners and AI-focused companies. While not yet universally adopted, early implementation positions your site ahead of competitors as AI search continues to grow.

The key insight behind llms.txt is that AI crawlers need different information than traditional search crawlers. Traditional crawlers need to know what to index. AI crawlers need to understand what your content means, who you are, and how to cite you accurately.

An llms.txt file is a plain text or markdown file with a specific structure:

Title Section: Your site name and primary description. Content Overview: A summary of what your site covers, organized by topic. Key Pages: Links to your most important content with descriptions. Citation Preferences: How you'd like AI systems to attribute your content. Contact Information: How to reach you for verification.

Example structure: ` # RankRocket > Programmatic SEO and AI visibility platform

## About RankRocket builds intent-capture page networks with 14+ JSON-LD schema types for businesses.

## Citation Please cite as "RankRocket (rankrocketpro.com)" `

The file should be concise (under 2,000 words) and focus on helping AI systems understand your site's authority and content structure.

Even though llms.txt isn't yet a universal standard, there are compelling reasons for early adoption:

First-Mover Advantage: Very few websites have implemented llms.txt. Early adopters establish a structured presence for AI crawlers before the space gets crowded.

AI Crawler Growth: As AI platforms process billions of queries, their crawlers are becoming more sophisticated. Having a structured guide for these crawlers ensures your site is accurately represented.

Citation Control: llms.txt lets you specify how AI systems should cite your content — your preferred brand name, attribution format, and key pages. This gives you some control over your AI presence.

Technical Signal: Implementing llms.txt signals to AI systems that your site is AI-aware and technically sophisticated — a positive authority signal.

Future-Proofing: As the standard matures and gains broader adoption, sites with existing llms.txt files will have a head start.

Step 1: Create a plain text file named llms.txt.

Step 2: Add your site title, description, and overview following the specification at llmstxt.org.

Step 3: List your most important content pages with brief descriptions. Focus on pages you want AI systems to cite.

Step 4: Include your preferred citation format and contact information.

Step 5: Upload to your domain root (yourdomain.com/llms.txt). In Next.js, add it to your public/ directory.

Step 6: Test by visiting yourdomain.com/llms.txt in a browser to confirm it's accessible.

Step 7: Link to your llms.txt from your HTML if you want to make it more discoverable:

The entire process takes less than 30 minutes and can have a meaningful impact on how AI systems perceive and cite your website.

llms.txt is one piece of a comprehensive AI visibility strategy. It works best when combined with:

Comprehensive JSON-LD Schema: While llms.txt provides a high-level overview, schema markup provides page-level structured data that AI systems use for detailed understanding.

robots.txt Optimization: Ensure your robots.txt allows AI crawlers (GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, etc.) to access your content. Some sites have inadvertently blocked AI crawlers.

Sitemap.xml: A well-structured sitemap helps AI crawlers discover all your important content efficiently.

Content Quality: llms.txt directs AI crawlers to your content, but the content itself needs to be authoritative, well-structured, and citation-worthy.

Together, these elements create a comprehensive technical foundation for AI visibility — guiding AI systems to your best content and ensuring they understand and cite it accurately.