What is llms.txt? Why Every Website Needs an llms.txt File in 2025
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llms.txt is a text file that is placed on your website that you can use to control whether AI models are allowed to crawl your content and use that content or not. It is like robots.txt, but it allows or disallows access to large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. All sites must implement llms.txt in 2025 for AI content protection and transparency.
What is llms.txt?
llms.txt is a new web standard that will provide website owners with control over their content and is used by Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, and more. Similar to how robots.txt will tell search engine bots where on your site to crawl or not crawl, the llms.txt file gives permission or blocks AI bots from crawling content on your website.
As AI continues to grow exponentially, it is more important than ever to protect your online content. Most LLMs train their models on public web data. Without your permission, your blog posts, articles, product descriptions, or original research probably fuel these machines behind the systems, usually without credit or approval.
The llms.txt file allows you to block AI crawlers, giving you an easy but effective way to take back control over your digital presence.
Why Every Website Needs llms.txt in 2025
1. Protect Your Intellectual Property
AI systems are trained using big datasets, largely taken from the open web. Your original content can be included in those datasets without you even realizing it. llms.txt allows you to control which content on your website you want to share with AI models.
2. Maintain SEO Integrity
Content duplication due to AI scraping would result in decreased originality signals in search engines. Monitoring and managing how your LLMs access your website content helps reduce the risk of inadvertently SEO penalizing and protects your rankings.
3. Control Consent and Data Use
Today’s users and creators expect content transparency. With llms.txt, you are informing AI models about how they can and cannot use your data trends, data privacy, and digital ethics!
4. Future-Proof Your Website
As regulations evolve, having an llms.txt file on hand may become a best practice — or even a requirement.
5. Gain a Competitive Edge
Businesses and publishers who want to show early digital maturity. You place your brand as forward-looking and privacy-respecting, which builds audience trust.
How to Create and Add llms.txt File to Your Website
Adding the llms.txt file is a simple but necessary way of adding AI content protection to your site. Just as robots.txt controls search engine crawlers, llms.txt allows you to block AI crawlers like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude from scraping your content without permission.
Here’s how to set it up:
Step 1: Open a Text Editor
Use a plain text editor like Notepad or VS Code. Do not use Word or rich-text apps.
Step 2: Create Your llms.txt Rules
Write your preferences. To block all AI models:
User-Agent: *
Disallow: /
Step 3: Save the File
Name it llms.txt (all lowercase) with a .txt extension.
Step 4: Upload to the Website Root
Place it in the root folder via your hosting panel, FTP, or file manager so the file URL becomes:
https://yourdomain.com/llms.txt
Step 5: WordPress Users – Use Rank Math or Yoast SEO
If you’re using Rank Math or Yoast SEO, you can easily manage files like robots.txt and now llms.txt:
- Go to Tools (in Yoast) or Rank Math > General Settings > Edit llms.txt
- Save and publish.
Step 6: Test It
Visit yourdomain.com/llms.txt in your browser to confirm it’s live. Monitor server logs for AI crawler activity.
Using llms.txt protects your content and keeps AI models in check—don’t skip this in 2025!
Which AI Models Interact with llms.txt?
In 2025, several major AI models have expressed intent to follow llms.txt, even though adoption continues to grow.
Known/Expected Compliance:
- OpenAI (ChatGPT): Announced publicly that their web crawler, GPTBot, will read and follow LLMs.txt.
- Anthropic (Claude): Partial support expected due to released updates in lines with responsible data use.
- Google Gemini (formerly Bard): Expected to support with Google AI policies. but its not fully confused yet.
- Meta (LLaMA): Not adhered to formally yet, but may be followed in the future as an industry pressure.
AI Models Without Public Support:
- Smaller or open-source models may not yet recognize or respect llms.txt.
- However, adoption is likely to increase as ethical AI practices become standard.
Why is llms.txt Different from robots.txt?
While both llms.txt and robots.txt are text files used to control how bots come to your site, they serve different purposes. robots.txt is intended for search engine spiders like Googlebot, assisting in the management of crawling and indexing. llms.txt file is specially targeted at AI models, allowing you to control the use of AI content versus search visibility.
Problems If You Don’t Use llms.txt
Ignoring llms.txt could leave your site and content exposed to unintended AI usage. Here’s what could go wrong:
1. Content Theft
LLMs are able to train on your content and reproduce that content in other places, including the finished outputs of competitors, without acknowledging any credit to you.
2. Loss of Control
Without boundaries, your content can be summarized, answered, or repurposed, and that content with your site will appear in search results.
3. Brand Reputation Risk
If your content is used to generate misinformation or biased AI outputs, your brand could be indirectly associated with inaccurate data.
4. Revenue Loss
By AI summaries answering queries on your content, users may end up not visiting your site, and this reduces avenues for ad impressions, affiliate revenue, and lead generation opportunities.
Conclusion:
As artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the digital world, protecting your content is more crucial than ever. The llms.txt file empowers website owners by making it explicitly clear which AI models are permitted or not to use their content. It is an easy, proactive measure towards AI content protection and blocks AI crawlers from abusing your precious digital properties. As a blogger, entrepreneur, or content creator, adopting llms.txt demonstrates that you care about transparency and responsible data use. Be an early adopter in this fast-paced field—learn from the masters. Digispire Academy, the top digital marketing institution in Kolkata, provides state-of-the-art SEO and AI training.
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To add llms.txt to Rank Math in WordPress, go to Rank Math > General Settings > Edit llms.txt and add your llms.txt rules. Save the modification, and manually upload the llms.txt file to your site’s root directory via FTP or File Manager.
You’ll also need to place the llms.txt file in the root directory of your website—where your home page and robots.txt file are. Make the file available with a direct link like https://yourdomain.com/llms.txt so that AI spiders can find it.
No, adding llms.txt does not affect the ranking of your site with the search engines. It simply limits access to AI models but not search spiders like Googlebot. Your search engine behavior is not affected unless you have set it to block standard bots.