Does Your Website Need an llms.txt File?

A new file worth knowing about

There's a new kind of file quietly showing up on websites, called llms.txt. It's a plain-text summary that sits on your site and tells AI tools what your business does and where the important pages are.

Think of it as a small sign at the front of the shop, except the reader is ChatGPT or a similar assistant instead of a passerby.

Why this is coming up now

More of your customers are starting their search by asking an AI assistant instead of typing into Google. "Who does bookkeeping near Concord?" "Find me a local insurance broker." The assistant reads the web and answers.

When those tools try to understand your site, they have to wade through menus, scripts, and layout to find the actual point. An llms.txt file hands them a clean summary instead: here's the business, here's what it offers, here are the key pages. It makes you easier to read, and easier to recommend.

What goes in it

It's deliberately simple - plain text, no code:

• Your business name and a one-line description of what you do.
• A short list of your most important pages with a few words about each.
• Anything you especially want an assistant to get right, like your service area or how to contact you.

That's the whole idea. It lives at your domain, the same way an older file called robots.txt already does.

Should you rush to add one?

Honest answer: it's not required, and it won't make or break you today. Adoption is still early, and no one should promise you a flood of new customers from it.

But it's cheap to add, it doesn't hurt anything, and it's the kind of small, early edge that's easy to put in place now and awkward to think about later. If someone already maintains your site, it's a quick addition.

The bottom line

An llms.txt file is a short, plain-English summary of your business, written for the AI tools your customers increasingly use to find services like yours.

You don't need to drop everything for it. But as more searching moves through AI assistants, being easy for them to read is worth a small, one-time effort. Add it when your site next gets touched, and keep it current.