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  • Cover: Everyone is copying llms.txt. That's a mistake. The file is harmless; the expectation is wrong. What it does and doesn't do — 5 points.
  • Fact: No AI is required to use it.
  • Distinction: Two files that get confused.
  • Rule 1: The template you copied isn't yours.
  • Interstitial: A file nobody reads isn't a file.
  • Rule 2: The real work is in the HTML.
  • Rule 3: Make the answer copyable.
  • Rule 4: Don't promise what you can't measure.
  • Closing: Comment LLMS. We'll send you a correctly written sample file and the checklist by DM.
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How-To Guide · GEO

Everyone is copying llms.txt. That's a mistake.

The file is harmless; the expectation is wrong. What it does and doesn't do — 5 points.

Short answer

llms.txt is a candidate standard proposed in September 2024 in which a site summarizes itself for AI models in plain text; OpenAI, Google and Anthropic have not stated that they use this file. The file is harmless, but it doesn't bring visibility on its own. First you need to make sure bots can access the site via robots.txt and that the main text is served in the HTML.

6 steps · 2 min read · · Turan Yasin Salcı

Step by step · 6 steps

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  1. No AI is required to use it.

    llms.txt is a candidate standard proposed by Jeremy Howard in September 2024. OpenAI, Google and Anthropic have not stated that they use this file.

    The honest take: In statements from Google, llms.txt has been compared to the old keywords meta tag: a file a site writes about itself that nobody reads.

  2. Two files that get confused.

    Both sit at the root, and both are plain text. One gets read; the other maybe.

    • Robots.txt: Actually read. It decides whether a bot can access the site. Get it wrong and you become invisible.
    • Llms.txt: Unclear who reads it. A menu in which the site summarizes itself. Get it wrong and nothing happens.

    Order: robots.txt first. Before writing llms.txt, make sure bots can access the site. Many people do it in the reverse order.

  3. The template you copied isn't yours.

    10 MINUTES

    The examples online were written for software documentation. A service business's file should look like this:

    Rule: Every line should be a real link that opens. Listing pages that don't exist turns the file into junk.

    # Diji Kocum

> Istanbul-based digital marketing agency.
> Websites, GEO, Google and Meta ad management.

## Services
- [GEO](https://dijikocum.com/geo): AI visibility
- [Web](https://dijikocum.com/web): website builds

  4. The real work is in the HTML.

    5 MINUTES

    AI bots read the page itself. If the page is filled in only by JavaScript in the browser, the bot sees a blank page.

    If you see this: If the output is nearly empty, writing llms.txt is pointless. Server-side content comes first.

    curl -A "GPTBot" https://yoursite.com | head -60

# do you see your main text in the output?
# if there's only <div id="root"></div>, there's a problem

  5. Make the answer copyable.

    20 MINUTES

    What AI quotes isn't a paragraph but a short, complete sentence. This format works on your pages:

    • Make the heading the question a person asks: "How long does GEO take?"
    • Right below it, a direct answer of 40–60 words.
    • Details, tables and examples come after that.
    • At most 6 questions per page. More dilutes them.

    Why it works: When building an answer, the model looks for the shortest complete piece it can take from the page. You're leaving it a ready-made piece.

  6. Don't promise what you can't measure.

    ONGOING

    Which metric do you expect to change after adding llms.txt? The honest answer: it has no measurable output.

    What is measurable: The number of GPTBot, PerplexityBot and ClaudeBot requests in your server logs. Are the bots coming, and which pages are they looking at — that's the real data.

Free · PDF

Download the LLMS checklist.

A printable checklist version of the steps on this page. The PDF is in Turkish; no sign-up needed.

Download the checklist (PDF in Turkish)

Sources

[A] primary source · [B] industry research · [C] practitioner · [D] our own data

This post is also on (in Turkish)

Frequently asked questions

Does adding llms.txt increase visibility in ChatGPT?

There's no evidence showing that. OpenAI, Google and Anthropic have not stated that they use the file, and llms.txt has no measurable output. What is measurable is the GPTBot, PerplexityBot and ClaudeBot requests in your server access logs and the pages they look at.

What's the difference between llms.txt and robots.txt?

robots.txt is the file bots actually read, and it determines whether they can access the site; if it's written wrong, the site becomes invisible. llms.txt is a menu in which the site summarizes itself, and it's unclear who reads it. The order is always robots.txt first.

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