What is an llms.txt file?

llms.txt is a plain text file placed at your domain root (yourdomain.com/llms.txt) that helps AI language models understand your brand, products, and key pages. It is similar to robots.txt but for AI systems instead of search crawlers.

Does llms.txt improve AI visibility?

Yes. llms.txt gives AI models a direct, structured signal about what your brand does and who it serves. This reduces ambiguity and increases the chance that an AI system will accurately describe and cite your brand when relevant.

Which AI systems read llms.txt?

Perplexity actively crawls and indexes llms.txt files. Claude (Anthropic) also reads them during browsing. ChatGPT browsing mode may pick them up. Even if an AI does not crawl llms.txt directly, the content can be indexed by search engines and then used as training data.

How long should an llms.txt file be?

Keep it under 500 words. llms.txt should be concise and scannable. Include your brand name, description, target audience, key products, and links to your most important pages. Avoid marketing language - write factually.

TUTORIAL

How to Add llms.txt to Your Website (and Why It Matters for AI Visibility)

By GeoIQ team June 10, 2026 5 min read

Quick Answer

llms.txt is a plain text file you place at your domain root. It tells AI models like ChatGPT and Perplexity exactly what your brand does. Creating one takes under 30 minutes and directly improves how AI systems describe and cite you.

What is llms.txt?

llms.txt is a proposed standard - similar to robots.txt - that gives AI language models a structured description of your website and brand. Instead of asking an AI to infer what you do from scattered web pages, you tell it directly.

Perplexity actively crawls llms.txt files. Anthropic's Claude reads them during browsing sessions. And even for models that do not crawl it directly, the file gets indexed by search engines and becomes part of the data corpus AI systems learn from.

If you run a SaaS product, an agency, or any brand that wants to appear in AI search results, adding llms.txt is one of the fastest improvements you can make.

What to Put in llms.txt

Keep it simple, factual, and under 500 words. A good llms.txt covers:

Brand name and description - one or two sentences explaining what you do
Target audience - who your product or service is for
Key products or services - the main things you offer, briefly described
Important URLs - links to your homepage, key product pages, pricing, and documentation
Contact or support info - optional but useful for entity verification

Avoid marketing language. Write it the way you would describe your company to a journalist - factual, clear, and free of buzzwords.

Example llms.txt

# GeoIQ

GeoIQ is an AI visibility platform that helps startups and businesses
track how their brand appears in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude,
and Grok.

## Who it is for
Founders, marketers, and agency teams who want to monitor and improve
their brand's presence in AI-generated search results.

## Key products
- Free AI Visibility Audit: geoiqai.com/audit
- Starter Plan: Brand monitoring for 1 domain, weekly scores
- Agency Plan: Multi-domain tracking, competitor analysis

## Important links
- Homepage: https://geoiqai.com
- Pricing: https://geoiqai.com/pricing
- Documentation: https://geoiqai.com/docs
- Blog: https://geoiqai.com/blog

## Contact
hello@geoiqai.com

How to Add It to Your Site

Step 1: Create the file

Open a text editor and write your llms.txt content. Save it as llms.txt. No special encoding or format is needed - plain UTF-8 text works.

Step 2: Upload to your domain root

The file must be accessible at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. How you upload it depends on your hosting:

Vercel / Netlify: Place it in the public/ folder
WordPress: Upload via FTP or cPanel to your root directory
Webflow: Add it as a published asset or via Cloudflare Workers
Shopify: Add it via a Cloudflare Worker since Shopify does not allow root-level file uploads

Step 3: Verify it is publicly accessible

Open yourdomain.com/llms.txt in your browser. You should see plain text. If you get a login redirect or a 404, the file is not in the right place.

Step 4: Submit to Perplexity

Go to perplexity.ai/publishers and submit your site. This tells Perplexity to crawl your content and prioritize your llms.txt. It takes a few days to be processed.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Putting it at /blog/llms.txt or /public/llms.txt instead of the domain root
Serving it with the wrong content type (it should be text/plain)
Writing it like a marketing brochure - AI models respond better to factual, direct descriptions
Forgetting to update it when your product or pricing changes

How Much Does llms.txt Actually Help?

It is one signal among many. llms.txt alone will not move a brand from invisible to highly cited. But it removes ambiguity - if an AI model is on the fence about citing you vs. a competitor with a clearer brand footprint, having a well-written llms.txt tips the balance.

Combined with structured content, consistent entity mentions across the web, and tracking your AI visibility score weekly, llms.txt is a fast, low-effort part of a complete GEO strategy.

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