Google’s Surprising Take: Why LLMS.txt Files Could Be a Game-Changer for Your Search Rankings—or Not!
Ever stumbled upon LLMS.txt files and wondered if they’re the secret sauce for skyrocketing your Google rankings? Well, here’s the scoop straight from the horse’s mouth—Google has finally cleared the air, and guess what? Those LLMS.txt files won’t make you famous in the search world nor will they tank your visibility. Turns out, Google Search doesn’t even bother using these AI text files, markup, or Markdown to boost your site. So if you’ve been stressing about whether to add or ditch them, relax—it’s neither a curse nor a charm for your SEO. Intrigued yet? Let’s unpack what this means for your site’s future in the AI search cosmos. LEARN MORE.
Google has updated its guide to optimizing for AI Search to clarify that having LLMS.txt files on your site won’t harm or help your search rankings in Google. Google also made it clear that Google Search does not use LLMS.txt files.
What Google wrote. I bolded the portion that is new, where Google wrote that Google Search does not use AI text files, markup or Markdown files.
- “You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in Google Search (including its generative AI capabilities), as Google Search itself doesn’t use them. Note that Google may discover, crawl, and index many kinds of files in addition to HTML on a website: this doesn’t mean that the file is treated in a special way.”
Google also added a new note that reads:
- “It’s completely fine if you decide to create and maintain LLMS.txt files (or other similar files) for other services or systems that use these files. Doing so won’t harm (nor help) your visibility or rankings in Google Search, as Google Search ignores them.”
Here is a screenshot of this section:
Dig deeper.
Why we care. There has been a lot of confusion around how Google Search handles LLMS.txt files and Markdown files, as well as other AI files. In short, Google Search may discover, crawl and index them but those files are not used in any special way for Google Search. It is not going to help you and it won’t hurt you for having them on your web site.
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