llms.txt
llms.txt is a proposed standard, published at llmstxt.org on September 3, 2024, for a markdown file at the root of a website (/llms.txt) that gives large language models brief background, guidance and links to the site's most useful content, in a format that's easy for them to read at inference time.
Why it matters for CPG brands
It's a cheap, low-risk way to hand AI tools a clean summary of who you are, what you sell and where the facts live. It's a proposal, not a ranking factor that every engine has committed to, and Google says it needs nothing beyond normal SEO for its AI features, so treat llms.txt as a helpful extra alongside crawlable pages and structured data.
Example
This site publishes one at /llms.txt: a short description of XENA Intelligence, links to SearchPanel and XENA 360, published results with their sources, and a list of every guide and glossary entry.
Read more
- Robots.txt for AI Crawlers: Should You Block GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot?
- The AI-Ready Product Listing Checklist: 30 Checks for Titles, Attributes, Images, Schema and Feeds
Related XENA products
- SearchPanel: SKU-level AI visibility tracking and fixes
Frequently asked questions
Does llms.txt replace robots.txt?
No. robots.txt tells crawlers what they may fetch; llms.txt is an optional guide to your content. You can, and usually should, have both.
Related terms
Sources
Third-party facts are from the linked pages, checked Oct 27, 2026. Examples are illustrative unless they link to a published XENA case study.