llms.txt

llms.txt checker: what llms.txt is and how to check it

llms.txt is a plain text file at the root of a website (example.com/llms.txt) that gives AI tools a short summary of the site and a list of its most useful pages, written in Markdown. It was proposed in 2024 as a simple way to help large language models read a site. Silkpath checks every crawled site for llms.txt and llms-full.txt.

By Raj Meena, founder of SilkpathUpdated 26 October 2026

What goes in llms.txt

An H1 heading with the name of the site or project
A short summary in a blockquote
Optional paragraphs with more detail
H2 sections with lists of links, each with a short note on what the page holds
An optional section, named "Optional", for pages that can be skipped

An example llms.txt

# Example Cafe

> Example Cafe is a coffee shop in Leeds that serves breakfast and
> specialty coffee, with online ordering by QR code at the table.

## Main pages
- [Menu](https://example.com/menu/): every dish and drink with prices
- [Opening hours](https://example.com/hours/): hours and holiday closures
- [Order online](https://example.com/order/): how QR ordering works

## Optional
- [Our story](https://example.com/about/): how the cafe started

Silkpath has its own: silkpath.netlify.app/llms.txt.

llms.txt and llms-full.txt

File	What it holds
`llms.txt`	A short summary and a list of links to the main pages
`llms-full.txt`	The full text of the main pages in one file, so a tool can read everything at once

Does llms.txt help ranking?

Be realistic: llms.txt is a proposal, not an official standard, and Google has said it does not use it for Search or AI Overviews. Some AI tools and developer platforms do read it. It is cheap to add and harmless, so treat it as a small extra on top of the things that matter more: letting AI crawlers in, plain HTML, clear facts and structured data.

How Silkpath checks llms.txt

Crawl the site with Silkpath.
Open AI Search, then GEO.
The llms.txt check says whether the site has llms.txt, and whether it also has llms-full.txt. The same section shows AI crawler access and the firewall test.

Questions and answers

Where do I put llms.txt?

At the root of the site, so it opens at https://yourdomain.com/llms.txt, served as plain text.

Is llms.txt the same as robots.txt?

No. robots.txt tells crawlers what they may fetch. llms.txt tells AI tools what the site is and which pages are most useful. They work side by side.

Audit a website with Silkpath

Enter a website address and Silkpath crawls every page, then reports SEO, AEO and GEO problems page by page, with PDF, Excel and CSV exports.

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