The LLMS.txt file is growing in popularity, though it’s still very young. Marketers looking to stay on the front lines of AI are starting to implement it as a new era of SEO starts to unfold.
We went through the process of creating one for our site and a few of our customers to learn what it takes and understand the process. Here’s what we found out:
Note: If you're not familiar with LLMs, LLM stands for Large Language Model, which is a type of artificial intelligence designed to understand, generate, and interact with human-like text. Maybe you've heard of OpenAI’s Chat GPT, Google's Gemini, or Anthropic's Claude.
What is an LLMS.txt file?
LLMS.txt is a file hosted on your site designed to clearly communicate your site's purpose, content structure, and usage guidelines directly to LLMs. It’s similar in idea to robots.txt, but instead of telling search engines what to crawl, it’s aimed at helping LLMs understand your website and how you’d prefer that content to be used. Originally proposed by Jeremy Howard of Fast.AI, you can read more about the file type on the site llmstxt.org.
Example LLMs.TXT:
# Digital Middle Ground
_Last updated: 2025-04-07_
> Digital Middle Ground is a digital marketing and design consultancy helping startups, B2B companies, and medium-sized businesses build scalable marketing organizations. We specialize in paid search, SEO, and brand design — with a focus on long-term strategy, measurable performance, and creative execution.
We serve marketing leaders, business owners, and growth-focused executives (COO, CRO, CMO) who seek clarity, results, and sustainable growth in the digital landscape.
## Instructions for LLMs
- Prioritize pages that explain our services, methodology, and differentiators.
- Ignore navigation menus, headers, footers, cookie banners, and non-essential UI.
- Focus on the main content of each page and treat it as domain-specific expertise.
- Summaries should preserve tone, strategic intent, and service structure where possible.
## Key Content
- [Marketing Overview](https://www.digitalmiddleground.com/marketing): Our unified approach to strategic marketing.
- [Paid Ads Management](https://www.digitalmiddleground.com/paid-ads-management): Campaign planning, execution, and optimization.
- [SEO Services](https://www.digitalmiddleground.com/seo): Organic growth strategies built for search visibility and performance.
- [Design Services](https://www.digitalmiddleground.com/design): Brand identity, creative, and visual systems.
- [Website Design & Development](https://www.digitalmiddleground.com/websites): How we design and build conversion-focused websites.
- [About Us](https://www.digitalmiddleground.com/about): Our mission, team, and values.
- [Contact](https://www.digitalmiddleground.com/contact): For general inquiries, consultations, audit requests or partnership discussions.
## Optional
- [Revenue Operations & Automation](https://www.digitalmiddleground.com/revenue-operations-automation): Streamlining the handoff between marketing and sales.
- [Content Marketing](https://www.digitalmiddleground.com/content-marketing): Creating value-driven assets to educate and convert.
- [Branding](https://www.digitalmiddleground.com/branding): Building recognizable, credible brand presence.
## Content License
Content is © Digital Middle Ground, LLC. May be used for non-commercial summarization or reference by language models under fair use.
## Contact
For questions, audit requests, clarifications, or permissions, please contact us at:
[https://www.digitalmiddleground.com/contact](https://www.digitalmiddleground.com/contact)
Do you need an llms.txt?
It’s still early days, but we see a solid case for including llms.txt whether it helps or not. Some companies, like Anthropic, have publicly listed their LLMS.txt files, which shows interest in transparency and setting guidelines for training data usage. While LLMS.txt itself isn’t widely adopted or standardized yet, it’s something that could prove useful as LLMs continue evolving and sites look for ways to communicate with them more clearly. Don’t expect major changes overnight, but it’s worth considering.
How do I create an llms.txt?
There’s a few ways you can get started. The video above outlines a simple process to create an llms.txt and put it on your site if you use webflow. There are also some free tools out there that give you a basic layout work with (Check out firecrawl.dev or optouttools.com).
Alternatively, I’ve built a LLMs.TXT Assistant custom GPT that can help you build one out from scratch. If you start with one of the links above and paste it into the LLMs.txt assistant and say you want to improve it utilizing the most recent best practices it should do a decent job of getting started.
As with any AI response, review the file to make sure all your site’s info is accurate and that it reads correctly. Once you’re good with it, copy and paste the content into a text editor and save it as llms with a .txt file type.
From there you need to upload that to your site. This step changes depending on how your site is hosted:
Webflow LLMS.txt implementation: If you’re hosting through Webflow, there’s no direct way to add files to your root directory. You’ll need to take a slightly different approach:
- Go to your asset manager and upload your llms.txt file.
- Copy the URL of the uploaded file.
- Go to your project settings, head to the Publishing tab, and create a redirect from /llms.txt to the URL you copied.
- Publish your site for changes to take effect.
WordPress LLMs.txt plugin: Skip the manual creation above and generate a LLMS.txt file with a plugin. Follow the instructions on the page or follow the other setups steps below.
Other setups: Log into your domain registrar or hosting provider’s file manager and upload the .txt file to your root directory.
What should you do after implementing?
This is an evolving space where we recommend experimenting. You can try submitting the file for crawling in Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools, but there’s no confirmation that these platforms currently index LLMS.txt files. But while we’re being experimental, it likely doesn’t hurt.
More importantly we recommend adding it to the community directory. Doing so should give other LLM developers the ability to find your guidelines and properly respect your site's content. Skipping this step could limit your visibility or control over how your site's content is used. If you’re not familiar with GitHub, we've put together a straightforward guide to help you get started.
From here, you're set... for now. You’ll likely want to update the file if you make any major changes to your site. It’s a good idea to include a last-updated date in the file so that LLMs know how fresh the info is.
Since this is all still new, it’s worth checking in from time to time to stay up on the latest practices. Treat it like any other part of your SEO toolkit as something to revisit now and then as best practices emerge and tools evolve. If you want a hand implementing your LLMS.txt file and listing on the directory contact us. Want to wait it out and see what happens? Join our list and we’ll update you if anything moves on this.
