Hey, it's Jeane 👋

I accidentally ran an experiment on my own website, and the result is the most honest thing I can tell you about the file everyone's arguing over.

My site lied to AI for five months. Nothing happened.

From late February until last week, our llms.txt file (the little text file you're supposed to add so AI can "read" your site) told every AI system that visited three things that were flat wrong. It listed three service plans we'd retired, at prices we don't charge anymore, and it carried four broken links.

Five months of feeding AI bad information about my own business. 🤦‍♀️ The consequences? Zero. No confused callers. No emails about the old plans. Silence.

That silence is the data. If AI systems were really reading these files and repeating them to customers, I'd have heard about it.

Here's the straight talk, because you'll hit hype the second you search this. Google does not use llms.txt. Google put it in writing: these files "will neither harm nor help your rankings in Google Search." Ahrefs checked 137,000 sites and found 97% of llms.txt files got zero requests in a month. So if anyone sells you llms.txt as an SEO trick or a shortcut into AI Overviews, walk away.

So should you skip it? Not quite.

The file found a different job. Not Google search, but the AI agents and assistants that visit your site to actually do something: gather your pricing, compare your services, fill out a form. That slice is small but growing, those tools do read the file, and Google's own developer tools now check for it. It takes 15 minutes, costs nothing, carries no risk, and your human visitors never see it. That's a fine cheap bet, as long as you don't expect magic.

Three more things worth knowing

1. Keep it short and true. Under 100 lines. WordPress.org describes the software running 43% of the web in 76 lines. And unlike me, keep it current.
2. The only proof that counts is a fingerprint. Put a code or a link in the file that exists nowhere else (Yoast uses one called LLMTXT15). If it ever gets used, that's a real AI-driven conversion. Everything else is a guess. Here's how we measure it.
3. The one free move that beats every dashboard: add "an AI tool (ChatGPT, Claude)" to your "how did you hear about us?" form. It catches the phone-call conversions no analytics tool on earth can see.

Your one move this week

If you're on WordPress, Yoast will generate the file for you in a couple of clicks. Turn it on, read what it wrote, fix anything vague, and drop in one fingerprint code. Fifteen minutes, then forget it until next quarter. Here's the whole no-risk playbook.

See you next Tuesday,
Jeane (sounds like Genie) Sumner
Website HQ + Findability OS

P.S. We built a quick quiz that tells you your website archetype, and the one thing quietly holding yours back. Two minutes, a little addictive. Find out which one you are: https://websitehq.com/quiz

P.P.S. Know someone stressing about llms.txt? Forward this. They can subscribe here: https://websitehq.kit.com/findable-email