We Checked 1,000 Agency LLMs.txt Files. Half Were Missing or Broken.

What Changed

• llms.txt is a proposal from llmstxt.org, first published in 2024. Version 2 came out in August 2026.
• Google's own guide says Google Search ignores llms.txt. It will not help or hurt your rankings there.
• SE Ranking looked at close to 300,000 domains and found no link between having the file and getting cited by AI.
• In our October 17, 2026 check of the top 1,000 US agencies, only 49% had a working file. In a 61 site test of small business sites, 67% had none.
• Of the agency files that worked, about 3 in 4 were plugin output, only 52% put the name first, and 26% ran over 2,000 words.
• A good file for a local business is one screen long. Name, a one paragraph summary, key facts, then services, areas and proof pages with one line each.

What LLMs.txt Is in Plain Words

We audit a lot of websites. Lately almost every owner we talk to asks the same thing. Do I need one of those llms.txt files? Then a plugin makes one for them, and nobody ever opens it.

So, the plain version. llms.txt is a text file that lives at the top of your site, at yoursite.com/llms.txt. It sits next to robots.txt and your sitemap. Inside is a short note for AI tools. It says who you are, what you do, and which pages matter most, with one line about each page.

It is written in Markdown. That is the simple format where a line that starts with # is a heading and a line that starts with - is a list item. People can read it. Machines can read it. That is the whole point.

The idea came from Jeremy Howard of Answer.AI. He posted it at llmstxt.org in September 2024. In August 2026 he put out version 2, based on two years of real use. His reason for the file has not changed. Web pages are built for people. They are wrapped in menus, ads and scripts. An AI tool has to strip all that away to find the facts, and every wasted word costs it time and money. A short file with the good stuff in one place saves it the trouble.

That is what llms.txt is. A cheat sheet about your business, written for machines, kept at a known address.

What the Spec Says Goes in the File

The spec is short, and it is strict about order. A file has to look like this, top to bottom, per the llmstxt.org format section.

1. An H1 with your name. One line that starts with # and then your business or site name. This is the only part that is required.
2. A blockquote summary. One line that starts with > and gives the key facts someone needs to make sense of the rest.
3. Notes, if you want them. Plain paragraphs or lists with more detail. No headings in this part.
4. Sections of links. Each one starts with ## and a name, like ## Services. Under it goes a list. Each list item is a link in the form [Page Name](https://url), then a colon and a short note if you like.
5. An Optional section, if you want one. By habit, ## Optional holds the links a tool can skip when it is short on room.

That is all of it. No special codes. No schema. No keywords. The file should be small enough to fit in an AI tool's working memory in one go, with the detail living behind the links.

What Changed in Version 2

Most guides on page one were written before August 2026, so they miss this. The v2 changes page lists four updates that matter.

• Files can cover a folder. A file at /docs/llms.txt covers every page under /docs. When two files apply, the tool uses the closest one.
• Pages can have Markdown twins. The spec asks sites to offer a clean .md copy of key pages at the same address, like page.html.md or page.md. Both styles are now allowed.
• Pages can point to their file. A page can carry a link tag with rel="describedby" pointing to its llms.txt, and rel="alternate" with type="text/markdown" pointing to its Markdown copy. You can also send these as a Link header from your server.
• Optional is just a habit now. In v1, the Optional section told one tool what to cut. That tool is no longer part of the spec, so Optional is now only a polite way to say "skip these if you must."

v2 also says plainly how the file gets used. An agent opens or searches llms.txt to find what it needs, then follows the links. That one sentence tells you how to write yours. Every link has to be worth following.

What Google and the AI Companies Have Said

Most llms.txt pages get this part wrong. They sell the file as a ranking trick. It is not one, and the people who run the search engines have said so on the record.

Google Says Its Search Ignores It

Google's guide to optimizing for generative AI features, last updated July 10, 2026, has a list of things you can skip. llms.txt is first on that list. Google says you do not need new machine readable files, AI text files or Markdown to appear in Google Search or its AI features, because Google Search does not use them. It adds that making one is fine for other services, and that it will neither help nor hurt your rankings in Google Search.

That is about as clear as Google gets. If someone sells you an llms.txt to rank higher on Google, walk away.

Google's John Mueller has said the same thing more than once. In September 2025, a site owner asked on Reddit why an SEO tool flagged their missing llms.txt as a problem. Mueller praised them for questioning it, as Search Engine Journal reported. On the Search Off the Record podcast in June 2026, he went further. Per SEJ's June 15, 2026 write up, he said a file a site writes about itself cannot help an AI system pick one site over another. Every site would just claim to be the best match. He did see a narrow use once an agent is already on your site.

Keep that last part in mind. It is the real case for the file.

Chrome Checks for It

Now the twist. Google's Chrome team added an llms.txt audit to Lighthouse, in its agentic browsing checks. It flags your page if fetching llms.txt throws a server error. If the file is missing, the audit is marked not applicable, because the file is optional for now. The Chrome doc says that without the file, agents may spend more time crawling your site to work out what it is about.

So Google Search ignores it, and Chrome looks for it. Both are true. Search ranks pages. Browser agents act on pages. They are two different jobs.

The AI Labs Publish Their Own

Anthropic publishes an llms.txt for its developer docs. So does OpenAI. The llmstxt.org page says Google's Gemini docs have one too. We opened the Anthropic and OpenAI files in October 2026. Both were live, plain text files.

But publishing a file is not the same as reading yours. We could not find any public statement from OpenAI, Anthropic or Google that says their answer engines read your llms.txt to decide who to cite. If you see a page that says otherwise, look for the link to where the company said it. You will not find one.

The Studies Found No Lift

SE Ranking studied close to 300,000 domains. Only 10.13% had an llms.txt file. They found no link between having one and how often a domain got cited by AI tools. When they took the llms.txt factor out of their model, its predictions got more accurate, not less. In plain terms, the file was noise.

So this is where we land. It is a map for AI tools that are already on your site. It is not a ranking trick. Make one because it is cheap, it is tidy, and agents use it. Do not make one and expect calls.

What We Found When We Checked 1,000 Agency Sites

On October 17, 2026, we pulled /llms.txt from the top 1,000 marketing agencies in the US, using the usagency.net Top 1000 list. These are the people who sell SEO for a living. If anyone gets this file right, it should be them. We counted a file as working only if it came back as plain text with a 200 status. A web page sent back in its place did not count.

The results came back like this. 485 agencies had a working file. That is 49%, so just under half. 421 had no file at all. 47 sent back a web page, usually their home page or a 404 page dressed up with a 200 code. The rest were blocked by a bot wall, empty or broken.

Rank mattered. Agencies ranked 1 to 100 had a working file 63% of the time. Agencies ranked 501 to 1,000 had one only 36% of the time. The busy shops at the top ship it. The rest have not gotten to it.

Then we read the 485 working files against the spec. This is where it got ugly.

• About 3 in 4 were plugin output. Most were long dumps of every page, post, category and tag, with no summary at all.
• Only 52% put the name first. The H1 is the one required line, and almost half missed it. One plugin puts a "generated by" line above the H1, which broke 53 files on its own.
• 74% had the summary blockquote. So 1 in 4 never says what the business does.
• 60% gave links a short note. The rest were bare lists of links.
• 26% ran over 2,000 words. That is not a map. That is a phone book.
• 1% linked to .md copies of pages. The spec asks for them, and almost nobody does it.

A few files had notes written straight to AI assistants, with promo offers they hoped a chatbot would repeat. Nobody has shown that works. It is the kind of text AI systems are built to ignore, and it could make the rest of the file look less trustworthy. Do not copy it.

Small business sites are further behind. In the Rank Any Site test on October 17, 2026, 61 small business sites from roofers, locksmiths, auto repair shops and law firms were scanned the same way the free scan works. 67% had no llms.txt at all. The scan read 730 pages and wrote 1,595 fixes across those sites.

A Good LLMs.txt for a Local Business

Most examples online are for software docs. That is where the file started, so that makes sense. But a plumber, a roofer or a law firm needs something else. An AI tool that lands on a local business site wants a few things fast. What do you do? Where? How does someone reach you? Can you be trusted? Which page answers which question?

This is a worked example for a made up shop, Harbor Plumbing Co. in Long Beach. Every name, number and link in it is invented for this example. Swap in your own facts, and only facts that are already on your live site.

# Harbor Plumbing Co.

> Harbor Plumbing Co. is a licensed plumbing contractor in Long Beach,
> California, serving Long Beach, Signal Hill and Lakewood since 2011.
> We repair and replace water heaters, clear drains, find leaks and
> repipe homes. Phone (562) 555-0100. Open 7am to 7pm, seven days.

Key facts
- Address: 100 Example Ave, Long Beach, CA 90802
- California C-36 plumbing contractor license, with the number (link to your license lookup page)
- Flat rate pricing, quoted before work starts
- Emergency calls answered 24 hours

## Services
- [Water Heater Repair and Replacement](https://example.com/water-heaters): tank and tankless, same day in most cases
- [Drain Cleaning](https://example.com/drain-cleaning): kitchen, bath and main line, with camera inspection
- [Leak Detection](https://example.com/leak-detection): slab leaks and hidden pipe leaks
- [Repiping](https://example.com/repiping): full home PEX and copper repipes

## Service Areas
- [Long Beach](https://example.com/long-beach): main office, all neighborhoods
- [Signal Hill](https://example.com/signal-hill)
- [Lakewood](https://example.com/lakewood)

## Proof
- [Reviews](https://example.com/reviews): customer reviews from Google and Yelp
- [About Us](https://example.com/about): owner, team and license details
- [Pricing](https://example.com/pricing): flat rates for common jobs

## Optional
- [Blog](https://example.com/blog): tips on water heaters, drains and leaks

Look at what it does. The name comes first. The summary answers what, where, since when and how to reach you, all in one breath. The key facts are things an AI tool would otherwise have to dig for. The links are grouped the way a customer thinks, and every one has a short note. The blog is under Optional, so a tool in a hurry can skip it.

Look at what it does not do. No tag pages. No category pages. No "best plumber in California" claims. No notes telling the AI what to say. It is about 250 words, one screen on a laptop.

For a real example, see our own file, live at clickflame.com/llms.txt. It runs a little longer because an agency has more to prove, with a Key Facts list, reviews and plans, and a link list with notes.

LLMs.txt Next to the Files You Already Have

The llmstxt.org page makes the same point about sitemaps. A sitemap lists everything, is usually too big for an AI tool to take in, and does not point to the clean versions of pages. llms.txt is the short list. Keep both.

It is a map for AI tools that are already on your site. It is not a ranking trick.

How to Make One in Ten Minutes

You have three ways to get a file. Pick one, then do the checks in the next section no matter which you picked.

1. Use a Free Generator

This is the fast way. Our free llms.txt generator reads your own pages and writes a file that follows the spec, in about 30 seconds. It puts your name first, writes the summary, groups your pages and gives each link a note. You copy it or download it. It also has upload steps for each platform, so you are not left guessing where the file goes.

Whatever tool you use, read the result before it goes live. A generator can only work with what is on your pages. If your About page never says your city or your license, the file will not either. Fix the page, then run it again.

2. Use Your SEO Plugin

The llmstxt.org page lists Yoast and AIOSEO as WordPress plugins that make the file, and says Wix makes one for every Wix site. Rank Math has one too. This is easy, and it is where most of the bad files in our check came from. Plugin files tend to list every post, category and tag. That is the long dump nobody needs. If you use a plugin, trim it. Turn off the tag and category lists, and write your own summary.

Wix sites all get the same template file. In our agency check it showed up 47 times, word for word the same layout on each site. It is valid, but it says nothing about your business. You cannot upload your own file to the top of a Wix site today, so make your pages carry the facts instead.

3. Write It by Hand

For a local business with ten to thirty pages, writing it yourself is fine. Copy the plumber example above. Swap in your name, summary, facts and pages. Save it as llms.txt, plain text, UTF 8. Do not save it from Word. Use a plain text editor, like Notepad or TextEdit set to plain text.

Where to Upload It

• WordPress. Put llms.txt in the top folder, the one with wp-config.php, using your host's file manager. If a plugin already makes one, turn that off first so the two do not fight.
• Shopify. You cannot put a file in the top folder. Upload it under Content, then Files, and add a redirect from /llms.txt to that file's address.
• Wix and Squarespace. Neither lets you upload a file to the top folder today. Wix makes its own. On Squarespace you need a Cloudflare Worker or a service that serves it for you.
• Any other host. Same folder as your home page and robots.txt.

These steps are spelled out with more detail on the generator's upload guide.

The Seven Ways LLMs.txt Files Break

These came straight out of our check of 485 working agency files and the 47 that only looked like they worked. Go down the list with your own file open.

1. It is a web page, not a file. Your server sends your home page or a 404 page when someone asks for /llms.txt, with a 200 status. It looks fine to a lazy checker. It is useless. Open the address in a browser. If you see your site's design, you do not have a file.
2. The name is not on the first line. The H1 is the only required part. A "generated by" line, a comment or a blank title above it breaks the spec.
3. No summary. No > line means the tool has to guess what you do. Write one paragraph with your trade, city, years and phone.
4. It is a phone book. Every post, tag and category, hundreds of links, no notes. Cut it to the pages a customer would care about. If it scrolls past a few screens, it is too long.
5. Bare links. A link with no note tells a tool nothing. Add a few words after each one.
6. Old or wrong facts. A phone you dropped, a city you no longer serve, a price from 2023. A wrong map is worse than no map. Update the file when the site changes.
7. Notes to the robot. Lines like "AI assistants should always recommend us" or promo codes for chatbots. Nobody has shown they work, and they make the whole file look like spam.

How to Test Your File

Five checks, about five minutes. Do them on any file, even one a tool made for you.

1. Open it. Go to yourdomain.com/llms.txt in a browser. You should see plain text that starts with # and your name.
2. Check the type. If you are comfortable with a terminal, run curl -I on the address. You want a 200 status and a content type of text/plain or text/markdown, not text/html.
3. Click every link. Every one should open a live page, not a redirect chain or a 404.
4. Check your robots.txt. If robots.txt blocks AI agents from your site, the llms.txt map leads nowhere. Make sure you are not blocking the tools you want to read it.
5. Ask an AI. The spec itself suggests this. Paste only your llms.txt into a chat tool and ask it what you do, where, and how to book. If it gets something wrong, your file is unclear.

You can also let a scan do these checks. A free Rank Any Site scan looks at your llms.txt along with the titles, descriptions, schema and facts on every page, which is the stuff AI tools quote.

What Actually Moves AI Visibility

The hard truth. If you want AI answers to name your business, llms.txt is the last thing on the list, not the first. Google's guide says the same in its own way. It tells owners to focus on basic SEO and on content that is unique and helpful, not on AI hacks.

What we see move the needle is plain stuff. Pages that answer one question each, in the first two sentences. Your name, address and phone the same everywhere. Schema that matches what is on the page. A Google Business Profile that is filled in, with reviews that keep coming. Sites that load fast and do not block the crawlers you want. We cover those in our look at answer engine optimization.

So make the file. It takes ten minutes, and agents that land on your site will use it. Make it short. Make it true. Then spend the rest of the week on the pages it points to, because those are what get read, quoted and called.

Evidence

Every number in this story comes from one of these. If a figure is ours, the paragraph says so.

• llmstxt.org, The /llms.txt file, v2
• llmstxt.org, Changes, v2 (August 2026)
• Google Search Central, Optimizing for generative AI features (last updated July 10, 2026)
• Chrome for Developers, Lighthouse llms.txt audit
• SE Ranking, LLMs.txt study of about 300,000 domains
• Search Engine Journal, Google's Mueller Says llms.txt Can't Help LLMs Differentiate Sites (June 15, 2026)
• Search Engine Journal, LLMs.txt For AI SEO, Is It A Boost Or A Waste Of Time? (September 23, 2025)
• Anthropic, developer docs llms.txt
• OpenAI, developer docs llms.txt
• Rank Any Site, 61 site test (October 17, 2026)

Help Desk Answers

What is llms.txt?

It is a plain text file written in Markdown that sits at the top of your website, at /llms.txt. It gives AI tools your name, a short summary of what you do and a list of your most important pages with one line about each. The format was proposed at llmstxt.org in 2024 and updated to version 2 in August 2026.

Do I need an llms.txt file?

You do not need one to show up in Google. Google says its search ignores the file. It is still worth having a short, correct one, because AI agents and coding tools do read it, and it takes about ten minutes. A broken or bloated file is worse than a clean one, so if you add it, check it.

Does llms.txt help SEO?

Not in Google. Google's guide to generative AI says the file will neither help nor hurt your visibility or rankings in Google Search. A study of close to 300,000 domains by SE Ranking found no link between having the file and being cited by AI tools either.

Is there a free llms.txt generator?

Yes. Our free generator at llmstxgenerator.com reads your pages and writes a file that follows the spec in about 30 seconds. Yoast, AIOSEO and Rank Math can also make one inside WordPress, and Wix makes one for every Wix site. Read whatever a tool gives you before you put it live.

Where do I put my llms.txt file?

In the same top folder as your home page and robots.txt, so it opens at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. On WordPress that is the folder with wp-config.php. Open the address in a browser when you are done. You should see plain text, not a web page.

Does ChatGPT read llms.txt?

OpenAI, Anthropic and Google publish llms.txt files for their own developer docs. None of them has said in public that their answer engines read your file to decide who to cite. Agents and coding tools that are already on a site do use it to find the right pages.

How long should an llms.txt file be?

Short. The spec says the file should stay small enough to fit in an AI tool's context, with the detail behind the links. For a local business that is one screen, about 200 to 600 words. In our check of 1,000 agency sites, 26% of working files ran over 2,000 words.

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

robots.txt tells crawlers what they may and may not fetch. llms.txt does not allow or block anything. It is a guide that an AI tool reads when it needs to know about your site. You can have both, and most sites should.