Create an llms.txt in 30 minutes — the complete guide for non-technical people

A copy-and-paste template, three ways to upload the file (even without technical experience), and how to check that it works. Let’s be honest from the outset: llms.txt isn’t a viable strategy today — it’s a cheap insurance policy for half an hour’s work, not a growth driver.

A llms.txt is a small text file in your domain’s root directory that provides AI engines with a brief, structured overview of your business. Let’s be honest from the outset: the file isn’t an effective ranking signal at present — but it takes half an hour to set up once, can’t do any harm, and you’ll be ready the day a search engine starts using it. It’s a low-cost insurance policy, not a growth driver. This guide gives you a template to copy and paste, three ways to upload the file (even if you’ve never used an FTP client), and how to check that it’s working.

What is an llms.txt — and what can it realistically do?

The format comes from the llmstxt.org specification: a Markdown file yourdomain.com/llms.txt with a heading (your brand), a single line about what you do, and links to your key pages. The idea is to give AI engines the short version of your site — without them having to guess their way through menus, cookie banners and fluff.

And now for the truth that most guides gloss over: the standard is new, and it doesn’t yet have any measurable impact. Ahrefs’ crawl analysis of 137,210 domains showed that 97 per cent of the llms.txt files in existence were never fetched by anyone in May 2026 — and Google has refused to use the file (“purely speculative”, June 2026). We’ve put together the full analysis in ‘Does llms.txt work? What the data actually shows’ — read it if anyone tries to sell you the file as the way to get into ChatGPT.

At the same time, there’s a significant gap in the figures: in our scan of 465 search-visible Danish company websites (our own survey, July 2026 — methodology here), 89 per cent were missing the file. If the search engines start using it, you’ll be ahead of almost all your competitors — and until then, you’ll have spent half an hour, not a budget.

Why create it if it doesn’t work yet?

Because the maths is skewed in your favour: the effort is 30 minutes once, plus five minutes whenever your services change — and the downside is zero. It’s the same logic as having an up-to-date CVR map and consistent opening hours everywhere: no single action moves the world, but machine-readable, unambiguous facts are the foundation on which everything else is built.

What you shouldn’t do, however, is spend hours maintaining a parallel set of pages for bots. That investment has no documented return. The file is a summary with links — not an extra website.

What does a completed llms.txt look like? (template)

A completed llms.txt is brief: a heading featuring your brand, a single line describing what you do, a handful of key facts and links to your most important pages — typically under 30 lines in total. Copy the template here into a standard text editor (Notepad, TextEdit — not Word), and replace the fields in square brackets:

# [Company name]

> [One sentence: what you do, for whom, and where — e.g. "Plumbing company in Manchester
specialising in district heating and emergency repairs for homes and businesses."]

## Key facts

- Services: [service 1], [service 2], [service 3]
- Area: [city/region, e.g. "Manchester and the North West"]
- Company ID: [your registration/VAT number]
- Contact: [phone/email from your site]

## Important pages

- [Homepage](https://www.[yourdomain].com/): [one line about the page]
- [Services](https://www.[yourdomain].com/services): [one line]
- [Prices](https://www.[yourdomain].com/prices): [one line]
- [Contact](https://www.[yourdomain].com/contact): [one line]

## Optional

- [Blog](https://www.[yourdomain].com/blog): [one line]

Three rules that are easy to overlook: the heading with # is mandatory, the line with > is your most important sentence (this is the one a search engine quotes first), and the section name ## Optional must be in English — it’s a technical keyword in the specification that means ‘these links may be skipped’. If you don’t want to write the file yourself, our free generator will create it based on your domain in a minute — no login required.

How do you upload the file?

The file must be located at yourdomain.com/llms.txt — that is, the root of the domain, not a subfolder, and in the same location as your robots.txt. How you get it uploaded depends on who manages your website: there are typically three ways; you only need to use one, and none of them require you to know how to code:

Message template for the person with access:

"Hi — attached is an llms.txt file. Could you please place it in the root directory of [yourdomain].com so that it responds to https://[yourdomain].com/llms.txt? It’s a plain text file, in the same location as robots.txt. Nothing else needs to be changed.”

If your platform cannot serve files from the root directory at all (this applies to some closed website builders), don’t waste hours on workarounds — make a note of it, and put your energy into what’s proven to make a difference: ensuring that AI crawlers aren’t blocked and that your content can be read without JavaScript.

How do you check that it works?

Verification takes two minutes and requires only a browser: you need to check that the file responds at the correct address, that it is served as plain text, and that the rest of your AI infrastructure has no major gaps. These three checks cover virtually all the errors we see in practice:

1. Open https://yourdomain.com/llms.txt in a browser. If you see your text, the file is in the right place. If you get a 404 page, it’s in the wrong place — typically in a subfolder or under the wrong name (llm.txt and llms.txt.txt these are the two classic mistakes).
2. Check that it’s plain text. If you see your text embedded within your website’s design, the platform is serving a ‘page’ instead of the file — in which case it needs to be moved to the correct root location.
3. Run the domain through the free test. It measures llms.txt as one of 15 metrics and also tells you if there are more important issues to fix first.

How do you maintain it?

The rule is simple: the file must say the same as your website. If you change your services, prices, area or telephone number, update the file at the same time — it takes five minutes. An out-of-date llms.txt is worse than none at all, as it serves incorrect information directly to the machine making the enquiry.

If you want this to run on autopilot, it’s included in Geoa’s paid plans: auto-fix generates the file based on your site and detects when it’s missing or has become out of date — along with the 14 other metrics that are measured continuously. And if you’ve already run your 5-question test in ChatGPT, you’ll also know which pages are most important to highlight in the file’s links.

Frequently asked questions

Does llms.txt work in ChatGPT today?

Not measurably, no. Google has refused to use it, and 97 per cent of existing files were never retrieved in May 2026. The argument for creating it is different: it takes half an hour, can’t do any harm, and you’ll be prepared if things change. See the sources on the virker-llms-txt page, which we update when the data changes.

What is the difference between llms.txt and robots.txt?

robots.txt determines what crawlers are allowed to do — it can block or allow AI crawlers. llms.txt provides context: a brief, structured overview of your site. They each serve a different purpose, are located in the same place, and robots.txt is the more important of the two: if GPTBot and ClaudeBot are blocked there, no one will read your llms.txt.

Should I also create an llms-full.txt?

Only if it can be generated automatically. llms-full.txt is an extended version containing the full content, and maintaining it manually is precisely the sort of parallel bot website that offers no documented benefit. Our generator creates both at once — if you’re doing it manually, you should stick to the short version.

Where should the file be located if my site runs on a subdomain?

In the root directory of the domain that customers visit: if your site runs on www.yourdomain.com, the file must be named www.yourdomain.com/llms.txt. If you have several subdomains, each with its own content, each will have its own file — but start with the main domain.