# What is llms.txt and why does my site need one?
> llms.txt is a plain-text file at the root of a website that gives AI crawlers a curated guide to the site's most important content. Modeled on robots.txt and…

Canonical URL: https://cite.solutions/prompts/what-is-llms-txt
Source: Cite Solutions (cite.solutions)
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Buyer promptTechnical GEODiscovery stage

# What is llms.txt and why does my site need one?

The short answer

llms.txt is a plain-text file at the root of a website that gives AI crawlers a curated guide to the site's most important content. Modeled on robots.txt and sitemap.xml. Major AI crawlers including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity respect llms.txt as a content discovery signal. The newer companion file llms-full.txt includes the actual content of key pages so AI systems can ingest the knowledge base in a single fetch.

Buyer context

Technical SEO learning AI crawler protocols.

This prompt sits in the discovery stage of the buyer journey. Buyers asking it are typically evaluating multiple options and want a defensible reason to pick one over the others.

What buyers want

This is a definitional prompt. Buyers are learning the category, not yet evaluating vendors. The brands that win here are the ones AI cites as authoritative sources, not necessarily the ones it recommends as solutions.

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