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Yoast SEO: llms.txt - functional specification

This documentation explains how Yoast SEO generates llms.txt files.

What does the Yoast SEO llms.txt feature do?​

  • Enabling the llms.txt feature will create an llms.txt file in the root directory of your website
  • This file will be be updated weekly by a scheduled action

How does Yoast SEO choose content to include in the llms.txt file?​

Posts/pages/custom post types

  • Yoast SEO includes the 5 latest updated posts/pages/custom post types in the llms.txt file (posts are only included if they have been published in the last 12 months)
  • Custom post types are included if the “Show tags in search results” box in the Search Appearance settings is ticked for the specific custom post type

Categories/tags/terms for custom taxonomies

  • Yoast SEO includes the 5 categories/tags with the most content pieces attached to them
  • Terms for custom taxonomies are included if the “Show terms in search results” box in the Search Appearance settings is ticked for the specific taxonomy

How can I delete an llms.txt file?​

  • You might see a warning from Yoast SEO that an llms.txt file can't be automatically generated because of an existing llms.txt file
  • You need to remove the existing file from the server for Yoast SEO to be able to generate it automatically

How can I create my own llms.txt file?​

  • Disable the feature
  • Create an llms.txt file in the root directory of your site
  • Follow https://llmstxt.org/ for best practices

Known limitations​

  • When there’s another llms.txt file, we make sure to not overwrite it. But if a plugin serves a llms.txt file dynamically, our txt file is created and since it has higher prio, it will be displayed in the example.com/llms.txt URL.
  • If you deactivate Yoast SEO while having the llms.txt feature enabled and then you activate it again at some point, for the next 5 minutes after activation the "View the llms.txt file" button in the settings will point to a 404.
  • We do not yet support markdown code blocks with special markdown characters. Currently these characters will be escaped. For example:
    • The site tagline contains the following string: “This is `the *tagline`”
    • Llms.txt will output that as “This is \`the \*tagline\`“
  • If the server doesn’t serve .txt files with a UTF-8 encoding and the llms.txt file has non-english characters in it, they will appear garbled when accessed via the browser.
    • So, the word Ελληνικά will appear as Ελληνικά there.
  • Post types that are set to noindex in the global settings will not be included in the llms.txt file. We don’t yet support the automatic exclusion of individual posts set as noindex.