Do I need llms.txt for AI search? | AI Referral Tracker (https://aireferraltracker.com/do-i-need-llms-txt)

# Do I need llms.txt for AI search?

Probably not. Google’s guidance says you don’t need llms.txt or any other special file to appear in its AI Overviews and AI Mode. llms.txt is a proposal for a plain text file that lists a site’s main pages for AI tools, and support for it is uneven.

## What llms.txt is

It is a plain text file, written in Markdown, that sits at the top of a website, for example at yoursite.com/llms.txt. It holds the site’s name, a short summary and lists of links to the pages an AI tool should read, each with a one-line note.

Jeremy Howard proposed it in September 2024 at [llmstxt.org](https://llmstxt.org/), where the specification is described as open for community input. It is a proposal that anyone can follow.

## What the sources say about support

Google’s [guidance on AI features and your website](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features), last updated in December 2025, says: “You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features.” It adds that no special schema is needed, and that a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet.

In June 2025 John Mueller of Google wrote on Bluesky that no AI system currently uses llms.txt. That is one statement on one date.

OpenAI’s [crawler page](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots) names OAI-SearchBot as the crawler that surfaces websites in ChatGPT search, and says sites that opt out in robots.txt are left out of ChatGPT search answers. We have not found a statement from OpenAI that ChatGPT search reads a site’s llms.txt, and we have not tested it ourselves.

So, as far as these sources say, the search assistants most owners care about read llms.txt rarely or not at all.

## What to do instead

- Make sure your pages can be indexed and shown with a snippet in Google Search. Google says this is what makes a page eligible for its AI features, and that indexing and serving are never guaranteed.
- If you want ChatGPT search to be able to show your site, check that your robots.txt does not block OAI-SearchBot.
- Put the answer to a customer’s question in ordinary text on a page of your own site, such as what you do after a storm or how a same-day repair works. In our early study, businesses with such a page were named for that question. That is an association in a small sample. See [Is ChatGPT recommending my business?](https://aireferraltracker.com/is-chatgpt-recommending-my-business).

## If you want to add one anyway

It is a short text file. Write the site name as a heading, a sentence or two of summary, then a list of links to your main pages with a short note on each, and save it as llms.txt at the top of your site. Ask whoever manages your site whether you can place a file there. Do the steps above first. The file is a small extra.

We publish an [llms.txt](https://aireferraltracker.com/llms.txt) on this site because it costs little.

## What a report adds

No file on your site can tell you what ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude say about your business. A report does. It shows how many of 180 answers named you, who was named instead and what to fix first.

One report is $97, and it includes a free re-check 30 days later, so you see what changed.

[Be notified when we launch](https://aireferraltracker.com/#join)

## More questions owners ask

### Who proposed llms.txt?

Jeremy Howard, in September 2024. The proposal and its format are at llmstxt.org.

### Is llms.txt the same as robots.txt?

No. A robots.txt file tells crawlers which parts of a site they may fetch, and OpenAI says it controls whether OAI-SearchBot uses your site in ChatGPT search. An llms.txt file lists pages you would like AI tools to read. They do different jobs.

### Where do I see traffic from Google’s AI features?

Google says it is reported in Search Console, in the Performance report, under the Web search type.

## Read next

- [Is ChatGPT recommending my business?](https://aireferraltracker.com/is-chatgpt-recommending-my-business)
- [How do I check if AI recommends my business?](https://aireferraltracker.com/check-if-ai-recommends-my-business)
- [How we check](https://aireferraltracker.com/how-we-check)

AI Referral Tracker is operated by Infinite Customer Systems, LLC.

Questions? Use [the contact page](https://aireferraltracker.com/contact).

Not affiliated with OpenAI, Google or Anthropic. ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude are named only to say what we measure.

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