If you’ve spoken to a digital marketing agency this year, there’s a fair chance someone has mentioned llms.txt, usually as a must-have for AI search: “Add this file and ChatGPT will understand your business.”
For most South African businesses, my answer is that it won’t hurt, and it won’t help you show up in ChatGPT or Google either.
What it is
llms.txt is a proposed standard from 2024. You add a plain text file to your site (yourwebsite.co.za/llms.txt) that gives AI tools a tidy summary of the site and links to your most important pages, in a format large language models find easy to read. It’s loosely modelled on robots.txt, the long-standing file that tells search engine crawlers which pages they may visit.
As an idea, it’s sensible. The problem is what happens in practice.
Who actually reads it
Google has said Search doesn’t support llms.txt and has no plans to, with one of its people comparing it to the old keywords meta tag, which Google stopped paying attention to years ago.
Analyses of AI crawler traffic published this year found that the bots from OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity and Google mostly read normal web pages directly and very rarely ask for llms.txt at all. None of the big AI search products says it relies on the file to decide which businesses to recommend.
So there’s no good evidence that adding one makes ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google’s AI Overviews more likely to mention you.
Why it’s being sold anyway
It’s quick to make, and it’s something tangible to put in a proposal. It sounds technical and new, which goes a long way when business owners are anxious about AI. And there is a real, narrow use for it: some AI coding assistants read llms.txt, which makes it worthwhile for software companies with technical documentation.
None of that makes it a visibility tool for a medical practice, a guesthouse, an online store or a law firm.
When it’s reasonable
If you run a software or SaaS business with developer documentation, add one. If you have a large content or e-commerce site and want to experiment cheaply ahead of AI shopping assistants, fine. If someone adds it in ten minutes alongside other work at no extra cost, there’s no harm.
What I wouldn’t do is pay for it as a standalone “AI optimisation” service, or treat it as a substitute for the work that actually moves the needle.
What does help
The things that get businesses into AI answers are less exciting than a new file, and they work:
- A website that’s fast, works on a phone and doesn’t block legitimate crawlers in robots.txt
- Structured data (schema), which search engines genuinely use to understand your business, services, reviews and FAQs
- The same business details everywhere online
- A clear page for every service
- Content that answers questions directly, with specifics
- Reviews, directory listings and mentions on credible sites
There’s more on all of this in the new SEO playbook.
Three questions for any “AI SEO” pitch
Which AI tools use this, and where is that documented? What evidence is there that it improves visibility or enquiries? What would you do for me instead if it didn’t exist?
Good advice in this area is grounded in how the tools actually work. If the answers to those three are vague, so is the value.
If you’d like a straight answer on what’s worth doing for your business, get in touch. We’ll tell you what isn’t worth it too.
