The Complete llms.txt Guide: What It Is and How to Create One
llms.txt is the emerging standard that tells AI crawlers exactly how to understand and cite your website — and it takes about 10 minutes to create.
What is llms.txt?
llms.txt is a plain-text file you place at the root of your website — yoursite.com/llms.txt — that gives AI language models structured instructions about your site.
Think of it like robots.txt — which tells search engine crawlers what to index — but for AI models. Instead of access rules, llms.txt provides context: who you are, what you do, which pages matter, and how you want to be described in AI-generated answers.
The format was proposed by fast.ai co-founder Jeremy Howard in 2024 and has since been adopted by a growing number of AI platforms including Perplexity, Anthropic's Claude, and several search-enhanced LLM tools.
When an AI model crawls your site without an llms.txt, it makes its own inferences about what you do — often based on homepage copy, meta tags, and link text. llms.txt lets you control that narrative directly, ensuring AI models describe your product or service accurately.
Which AI platforms read llms.txt?
The llms.txt format
llms.txt uses Markdown with a specific structure. The file has four main sections:
- Title — a single
# H1heading with your brand name - Summary blockquote — a
>blockquote with a 1–3 sentence description of who you are and what you do - Sections —
## H2headings grouping related information - Links or text — bullet lists with page links and descriptions, or free-form paragraphs
Example llms.txt
# llms.txt — Visovra AI Instructions
> Visovra is a Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) platform
> that measures and improves how brands appear in AI-generated
> answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Copilot.
## About This Site
Visovra helps marketing teams, SEO agencies, and SaaS brands
track and improve their GEO Score — a 0–100 rating of how
often AI models cite your brand across 5 major platforms.
## Key Pages
- /: Platform overview and GEO Score demo
- /pricing: Plans for Starter, Professional, and Agency tiers
- /about: Team, mission, and founding story
- /blog: GEO optimization guides and tutorials
- /integrations: Supported platforms and APIs
## What We Do
- Real-time GEO Score measurement via live AI API calls
- AI-powered audit reports with GPT-4o recommendations
- Automated llms.txt file generation
- Platform monitoring: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot
- Auto-fix suggestions for schema, content, and technical issues
## Contact
hello@visovra.com
https://visovra.comHow to create your llms.txt
llms.txt vs robots.txt — what's the difference?
Common mistakes to avoid
- Being too vague. "We offer digital services" tells AI models nothing. Be specific: name the product, the target customer, and the key capability.
- Using marketing fluff. Phrases like "industry-leading" and "best-in-class" dilute the signal. Write plainly, as if describing yourself to a technical person.
- Forgetting to update it. llms.txt should reflect your current product. If you launch new features or change your positioning, update the file.
- Not linking key pages. The "Key Pages" section is how AI models know which parts of your site contain the most authoritative information. Don't skip it.
- Making it too long. Aim for 40–80 lines. AI models have context limits; dense, long files may get truncated.
Generate your llms.txt automatically
Visovra crawls your site, analyses your content, and generates a complete, optimised llms.txt file — plus a GEO Score showing how it affects your citation rates across all 5 AI platforms.
Generate My llms.txt Free →