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# How to write a good llms.txt file

Your website is built for people: navigation menus, cookie banners, scripts, layout. A language model reading your site has to dig through all of that to find the facts, and it only gets a limited amount of text to work with. llms.txt is a single Markdown file at the root of your site that hands the model a short, curated map instead: your name, a one-paragraph summary, and links to the pages that matter, each with a one-line note.

It was proposed by Jeremy Howard of Answer.AI in September 2024 and is maintained at llmstxt.org as a community proposal. That is the actual status: it is not a web standard, no standards body ratified it, and none of the major AI engines documents exactly how it uses the file. What it costs you is one sitting. What it buys you is a cleaner read of your store for any tool that bothers to look.

## What the file is and is not

llms.txt sits next to two files you already know and does a different job from both. robots.txt tells crawlers what they may fetch. Your sitemap lists the URLs you want indexed. llms.txt points AI tools at your most useful pages, with context attached.

It cannot block anything. There is no allow or disallow syntax in it, and no crawler treats it as permission. If you want to keep an AI crawler out of part of your site, that is robots.txt's job. See our robots.txt guide for AI search.

It is also not a sitemap. A sitemap says here is everything. llms.txt says here is what matters. The curation is the point.

## The format

The proposal is deliberately simple. Plain Markdown with a few conventions:

1.  An H1 with your site or brand name. This is the only required part.
2.  A blockquote, a line starting with \>, with a one-paragraph summary of what you do.
3.  Optional detail: short paragraphs or lists with context a model needs up front. No headings here.
4.  H2 sections of links, one list per section, each item written as `- [Page title](https://aizii.ai/learn/ai-search/how-to-write-a-good-llms-txt-file/URL): one-line description`. The description is what makes the file useful. Without it, the file is just a sitemap written in Markdown.
5.  A section called Optional for secondary links: your blog, press page, changelog. Low-priority pages get a clear home instead of cluttering the main list.

The proposal also defines an optional companion file, /llms-full.txt: the full text of your key pages concatenated into a single Markdown document. For most stores this is overkill. Start with the short file.

## A complete sample for a store

Say you run an outdoor gear shop. Your file might look like this, replacing yourdomain.com with your actual domain:

```
# Cedar and Pine Outfitters
> Cedar and Pine Outfitters sells outdoor apparel and camping gear from its Seattle storefront, shipping across the US. Runs an in-house tent repair service and publishes beginner backpacking guides.
## Shop
- [Tents](https://[yourdomain.com]/collections/tents): Two-person and family tents, described by season rating and packed weight.
- [Sleeping bags](https://[yourdomain.com]/collections/sleeping-bags): Down and synthetic bags, described by temperature rating.
- [Backpacks](https://[yourdomain.com]/collections/backpacks): Day packs and multi-day packs, listed with capacity in liters.
## Guides
- [Backpacking checklist](https://[yourdomain.com]/pages/backpacking-checklist): Complete gear list for a first overnight trip.
- [Tent care and repair](https://[yourdomain.com]/pages/tent-repair): How the in-house repair service works, turnaround and pricing.
## Policies
- [Shipping and returns](https://[yourdomain.com]/pages/shipping-returns): Free shipping over 75 dollars. 60-day returns on unused gear.
## Optional
- [Journal](https://[yourdomain.com]/blogs/journal): Trip reports and gear maintenance notes.
```

That is a complete, useful file. Notice what is not in it: no individual product pages, no sale banners, no login or checkout pages.

Before adapting this sample by hand, run the free scan at aizii.ai/aeo-scan and hit fixes. Enter your email and it shows your fixes across llms.txt, robots.txt, and the rest, generated from your actual site.

## What goes in it for an ecommerce store

Brand summary: one paragraph with the facts a model needs to describe you accurately. What you sell, where you ship, who you serve. Write facts, not taglines.

Catalog structure: your collections or categories, each with a description of what the range covers. A model recommending a tent needs to know your tents collection exists and what is in it. It does not need all forty product URLs.

Key pages: the pages shoppers actually ask about. Buying guides, size guides, your about page, store location and hours if you have a physical shop.

Policies: shipping, returns, warranty. AI assistants get asked about these constantly, and your policy page is usually buried three clicks deep. Put it in the file.

What stays out: individual product pages (link the collection instead), sale or seasonal pages that will expire, anything behind a login, cart and checkout pages. A dead link in this file is worse than no link, because the file exists to be trusted.

## Getting it live

The requirement is the same everywhere: the file must serve as plain text at \[yourdomain.com\]/llms.txt, over HTTPS with a 200 status, replacing yourdomain.com with your actual domain.

The steps to get it there depend on your platform. Some hosted platforms do not give you access to the site root, so the workaround differs. See the platform guides:

-   [How to add llms.txt to Shopify](https://aizii.ai/learn/ai-search/how-to-add-llms-txt-to-shopify)
-   [How to add llms.txt to WooCommerce](https://aizii.ai/learn/ai-search/how-to-add-llms-txt-to-woocommerce)
-   [How to add llms.txt to BigCommerce](https://aizii.ai/learn/ai-search/how-to-add-llms-txt-to-bigcommerce)
-   [How to add llms.txt to Salesforce Commerce Cloud](https://aizii.ai/learn/ai-search/how-to-add-llms-txt-to-salesforce-commerce-cloud)
-   [How to add llms.txt to Adobe Commerce](https://aizii.ai/learn/ai-search/how-to-add-llms-txt-to-adobe-commerce)
-   [How to add llms.txt to Wix](https://aizii.ai/learn/ai-search/how-to-add-llms-txt-to-wix)
-   [How to add llms.txt to Squarespace](https://aizii.ai/learn/ai-search/how-to-add-llms-txt-to-squarespace)
-   [How to add llms.txt to a self-hosted site](https://aizii.ai/learn/ai-search/how-to-add-llms-txt-to-a-self-hosted-site)
-   [How to add llms.txt to a custom website](https://aizii.ai/learn/ai-search/how-to-add-llms-txt-to-a-custom-website)

## Common mistakes

Putting the whole catalog in it. The file is a shortlist. If it takes more than a minute to read, trim it back to collections and key pages.

Duplicating the homepage. The file is supposed to add information the homepage does not carry cleanly. If it reads like your homepage copy, rewrite it as a map.

Never updating it. Collections get renamed, categories get removed, guides get rewritten. A file that points at last season's catalog teaches the model last season's catalog. Revisit it when your catalog changes.

Using robots.txt syntax. We see User-agent and Disallow lines inside llms.txt files in the wild. They do nothing there. Keep crawler rules in robots.txt.

Writing marketing copy. Best-in-class and game-changing describe nothing. The model needs facts: what you sell, where you ship, what the return window is.

## How to test it

Open \[yourdomain.com\]/llms.txt in a browser. You should see your Markdown served as plain text. A 404 means the file is in the wrong place or a redirect is misconfigured.

Check the headers with `curl -I https://[yourdomain.com]/llms.txt` and confirm a 200 status and a text/plain content type.

There is no submission step. No search console, no ping endpoint, no resubmission after edits. Publish it, verify it loads, and re-fetch after you change it.

The format is still evolving: none of the crawler documentation published by OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, or Google mentions llms.txt yet. But a clean, machine-readable summary makes your brand easier for models to see and show accurately when they do read it. Twenty minutes now, keep it updated as the convention forms.

## What this guide does not cover

Getting the file published is one page of a larger job. Your catalog drifts, crawler behavior changes, and being readable is not the same as being recommended or bought from. That is what monitoring and the full audit exist for.

## Frequently Asked Questions

Where should the llms.txt file be hosted on my store?

It must be hosted at the exact root of your primary domain, accessible as https://yourdomain.com/llms.txt with a text/plain content type.

Should I list all my individual product SKUs in llms.txt?

No. Include only your brand summary, category or collection links, and key policy pages. Listing hundreds of individual products dilutes the file and makes it unwieldy.

Does llms.txt replace robots.txt?

No. Robots.txt controls crawling permissions, while llms.txt provides a curated markdown summary of your site content for language models.

## Check your own brand now

Run the free scan. One click, no signup, and it shows exactly how readable your site is to AI tools today: aizii.ai/aeo-scan

[Run the free scan](https://aizii.ai/aeo-audit)