LLMs.txt: Fixing AI’s Website Misinterpretations

Large language models (LLMs) often misinterpret websites due to noisy HTML, limited context windows, and scattered crucial information. This leads to inaccurate summaries and explanations, regardless of good SEO practices. Traditional SEO focuses on search engine optimization, but LLMs require a different approach. The solution is llms.txt, a simple Markdown file placed at the root of a website. This file provides LLMs with a concise project summary and direct links to clean, LLM-readable versions of key pages. It helps AI tools quickly grasp a site's structure and content without parsing messy HTML or relying on metadata designed for search engines. While not yet officially supported by major LLM providers, llms.txt offers a low-effort, no-risk way to improve AI understanding of websites. It's especially beneficial for developers, product marketers, and teams using chatbots to access information. The implementation involves creating an llms.txt file and ideally, Markdown versions of crucial pages. Yoast SEO plugin offers automated llms.txt generation. An example of an llms.txt file shows a structured format, categorizing posts, pages, categories, and tags with direct links. This isn't a replacement for SEO; rather, it acts as a companion, guiding AI to the essential information, focusing its attention where needed. The future of AI website interpretation may rely on standardized LLM access, and llms.txt represents a proactive step in that direction.

(Source: https://yoast.com/what-ai-gets-wrong-about-your-site-llms-txt/)