Jun 19, 2025
LLMs.txt for Shopify Stores: Hype or Really Effective for SEO?
Is LLMs.txt hype? or is it really worth it to invest?
As a Shopify store owner, your inbox is probably full of “must-have” SEO tips. One trend has been getting a lot of attention is the llms.txt file.
Supporters say it’s a kind of “map” that helps AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity understand your site. Skeptics—including some well-known voices at Google—say it’s basically a new version of the old meta keywords tag: mostly hype, not help.
So should you add an llms.txt file to your site, or ignore it and focus elsewhere?
In this article, we’ll cover what experts are saying, what the SEO community believes, and what tends to work for e-commerce SEO in the AI era.
What is llms.txt?
llms.txt is a proposed standard for a simple text file written in Markdown. You place it in the root folder of your website. The idea is to list your best pages—the ones you want large language models (LLMs) to use first when they answer questions about your business.
AI tools have limited space to read and process information at one time. That means they can get lost on websites with heavy code, pop-ups, and complex menus. An llms.txt file works like a guide. It points AI systems to your most useful content, such as product manuals, brand information, or important collection pages.
For example, the file would live at:
vevy.ai/llms.txt
And it could include something like this:
What authorities say about llms.txt: Google’s view
If you want a clear answer from Google, here it is: Google says it does not use llms.txt.
John Mueller, a Search Advocate at Google, has been direct about it. In a recent discussion, he said: “FWIW no AI system currently uses llms.txt.” He also explained that chatbots and LLM tools may fetch your pages for “training and grounding,” but they don’t currently fetch the llms.txt file itself. He even compared it to the old meta keywords tag, calling it “keywords meta tag V2.”
Google’s own documentation says the same thing in a more official way. For features like AI Overviews and AI Mode, Google says there are no extra requirements beyond normal SEO best practices. It also states that site owners don’t need to create new machine-readable files, AI text files, or special markup to show up in these AI features.
The expert counter-argument
Even though Google is not impressed, some SEO experts think llms.txt is just early.
Carolyn Shelby, an SEO and AI strategist at Yoast, says new web standards often start this way. She points out that tools like robots.txt and sitemaps also faced pushback at first, and it took years before they became common.
Shelby sees llms.txt as a practical tool for an “LLM answer layer.” In other words, it can give AI systems a clean, lightweight Markdown version of your best content instead of making them crawl heavy pages. That can reduce server load and make it easier for the AI to pull the right details.
Her take: if this approach becomes popular later, the sites that adopt it early will already be prepared.
The Reddit reality check: “smoke and mirrors?”
On Reddit—especially in r/SEO—the mood is mostly “this is hype.” A lot of users think the sudden push for llms.txt (often from SEO tool companies) creates a self-reinforcing loop where people repeat the idea without clear proof.
Here are the main concerns Redditors raise:
Bad user experience: If you publish Markdown (.md) versions of pages for LLMs, some people worry AI tools might link to those plain, ugly URLs instead of your polished Shopify product pages.
Grandstanding: Some users say the “llms.txt drove traffic” stories feel like marketing. The argument is that these companies likely ranked well already, with or without the file.
Low adoption: A manual review of the top 50,000 websites found only 22 using llms.txt, which suggests it’s nowhere near a real standard yet.
So what actually influences LLM recommendations?
If llms.txt doesn’t move the needle, what does? In most cases, it’s the content on your pages, not a file in your root folder.
Research on “adversarial SEO” suggests LLMs can be steered—but mainly through what’s written on a webpage. One 2024 study from researchers at ETH Zürich found that “preference manipulation” (basically hidden prompt text on a page) could make a product about 2.5× more likely to be recommended by Bing.
If you’re not trying anything shady SEO, there are still “light” signals that LLM-style tools often reward with mentions and citations:
Content depth: Tools like Perplexity and Google’s AI results often favor pages with more complete, detailed answers (more words and full sentences).
Readability: ChatGPT tends to prefer text that’s easy to read. A higher Flesch score usually helps.
Query match: Models trust pages that use the same wording a user uses. For example, a page that clearly says “best and cheapest” may beat a better page that never uses those words.
Is it worth investing in llms.txt?
For most Shopify stores in 2024–2025, llms.txt is mostly hype. Right now, the big AI and search platforms don’t use it as a clear ranking or citation signal. So if you create one, you should not expect a quick win or measurable ROI.
That said, the idea behind it matters. AI systems reward pages that are easy to understand. If you want to future-proof your store, spend your time on things that already help today:
Better content: Clear product details, strong category pages, helpful FAQs, and real comparisons.
Structured data: Solid schema markup, clean titles, and consistent product info.
Site clarity: Simple navigation, fast pages, and fewer distractions.
Think of it like this: adding llms.txt today is like putting up a sign in a language most people can’t read yet. It probably won’t help now. It also won’t hurt. But your best investment is making your store easy to understand for both humans and machines.
TL;DR:
llms.txt is a simple file that lists the pages you want AI tools to read first.
Google says it doesn’t use llms.txt, so it won’t boost rankings or AI visibility right now.
Some experts think it may matter later, but today it’s still early and not widely adopted.
LLMs mostly reward good page content, like detailed answers, easy-to-read writing, and close keyword match.
Best use of your time: improve product and collection pages, add structured data, and keep your site fast and clear.
