Recently, a file called llms.txt has been proposed as a way for website owners to control how their content is used by AI models. It's a concept similar to robots.txt, but aimed at Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT or Claude. While this idea has sparked some interest in the SEO community, Slim SEO has no plans to support llms.txt yet. Here's why.
llms.txt is not a standard yet
First and foremost, llms.txt is not an industry standard yet. It is simply a personal proposal from Jeremy Howard. While his idea is interesting, it hasn't been adopted or endorsed by any major AI companies like OpenAI, Google, Meta, or Anthropic. There are no public announcements from major AI companies for using this proposal.
SEO experts question its usefulness
In a post on Bluesky, John Mueller from Google stated:
FWIW no AI system currently uses llms.txt
At Google Search Central Deep Dive 2025 event in Bangkok, Gary Illyes from Google clearly stated that Google doesn't support LLMs.txt and isn't planning to.
And according to Search Engine Land, Google's stance is clear: traditional SEO techniques are still the best way to influence how your content appears in AI-generated overviews.
If Google, arguably the biggest player in both search and AI, doesn't use llms.txt, there's little incentive for website owners or SEO tools to implement it.
Ahrefs, a well-known SEO platform, published a detailed post that breaks down why llms.txt is not a practical solution. Their conclusion?
- It's not supported by LLMs.
- There's no formal specification or adoption.
- It's unclear how it would even be enforced.
They also highlight that robots.txt already serves the purpose of controlling crawler access, and extending this to LLMs would require those companies to actually comply - something they're not currently doing.
But Yoast SEO supports it?
After being acquired, Yoast SEO changes a lot. Not all it does is standard. Here is a quote from Jono Alderson, SEO expert and former Yoast employee (which is also retweeted by Joost - the co-founder of Yoast SEO):
llms.txt is probably a waste of time. But you know what isn't? All of the other 'standards' files you should care about.
Will Slim SEO support llms.txt in the future?
In our opinion, all AI companies should respect:
robots.txtto know which parts of the website can be crawled, which parts notsitemap.xmlwhere all the URLs are listed for crawling
To improve the visibility in AI, you should provide a clear copy of your important pages (homepage, landing pages). And according to Google, traditional SEO techniques are still the best way to influence how your content appears in AI-generated overviews.
For now, Slim SEO doesn't support llms.txt yet, because:
- Adding a feature with no real-world impact,
- Increasing code complexity and the plugin size
Until llms.txt becomes widely supported (if ever), we believe it's better to invest in proven SEO best practices - like optimizing content, metadata, site structure, and schema - rather than experimenting with speculative proposals.
That's what we build Slim SEO for - and that's what continues to deliver results.