Yoast Launches the First llms.txt Generator in an SEO Plugin — Ushering in a New Era of AI-Ready Content
Wijchen, Netherlands – June 2, 2025 — Yoast, a Newfold Digital company and the makers of the most popular SEO plugin in the world, has released a groundbreaking new feature: llms.txt, the first tool of its kind integrated directly into an SEO plugin.
This new capability creates a structured, markdown-based file that summarizes a website’s most important content in a format optimized for how large language models (LLMs) — including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity — ingest, extract, and summarize information.
“LLMs need clarity and structure to understand what your site is really about,” said Carolyn Shelby, Principal SEO at Yoast. “llms.txt gives AI tools exactly what they need: a clean, high-signal summary of your most valuable content. If you want your site to be cited and included in AI answers, this is how you show up.”
Unlike robots.txt, which restricts crawling behavior, llms.txt is designed to enable intelligent discovery. It guides AI assistants to high-quality, plain-text versions of a site’s cornerstone content — increasing the odds that your brand’s voice is included in AI-generated responses.
Robots.txt is about exclusion. Sitemap.xml is about discovery. llms.txt is about curation — guiding AI models directly to the most useful, well-structured content on your site.
With one click, Yoast SEO users can generate and publish an llms.txt file. The plugin automatically updates it as needed, ensuring LLMs have access to fresh, accurate summaries — no technical setup required.
Built for the New Rules of AI Search
As generative search reshapes how people discover information, brands face a new challenge: being selected for inclusion in AI answers — not just ranked in search results.
LLMs don’t index pages like Google’s crawler used to. They retrieve and recombine the most relevant, clearly written, and semantically structured content. This shift means traditional SEO tactics are no longer enough. Brands need to signal relevance and clarity at the moment of retrieval — not just hope for a high rank.
“Inference is a fresh visit every time,” said Shelby. “LLMs aren’t crawling and caching like traditional search engines. They’re checking in on-demand, and llms.txt helps them land on the right content when it matters most.”
“Ranking is no longer the prize — inclusion is,” she continued. “llms.txt makes your content easier to find, understand, and extract for AI systems. It’s not just about SEO anymore — it’s about making your content findable and understandable by AI at the moment of retrieval.” Llms.txt isn’t about restriction or permission — it’s a treasure map to buried gold for the LLMs.
Leveling the Playing Field
Yoast has made the llms.txt feature available in the free version of the plugin, democratizing access to this new AI optimization strategy. That means small businesses and independent creators can now take meaningful steps to improve their visibility in AI-generated content — even in a landscape where brand authority often dominates.
“Our new llms.txt feature marks an important moment for Yoast and for our users,” said Chaya Oosterbroek, CEO of Yoast. “As AI transforms how content is discovered and shared, we want to make sure our community isn’t left behind. This feature helps sites speak the language of large language models which is critical for staying visible in AI-driven search experiences. What makes this especially exciting is that we’re making it available for free. Because we believe SEO, and now AI optimization, should be for everyone, not just those with deep technical skills or big budgets. That’s always been our mission, and the llms.txt feature is the next step in delivering on it.”
This launch reinforces Yoast’s commitment to making advanced SEO — and now AI visibility — for everyone.