Yep, back on comments from Google on the LLMs.txt file. Another question came up on Bluesky asking if the fact that some Google properties still have the LLMs.txt files up, if that is some sort of endorsement from Google. John Mueller from Google said, simply, "no," it is not an endorsement.
John was asked by ‪Esben Rasmussen, "Sorry for being late to the party, but I just spotted this ai.google.dev/api/llms.txt. @johnmu.com Is this an endorsement from Google?"
John wrote on Bluesky, "I'm tempted to say something snarky since this has come up so often, but to be direct, no."
Here is a screenshot of that conversation:
As a reminder, several weeks ago, the CMS platform Google uses began supporting LLMs.txt files and it was added to a lot of Google's various developer docs. This includes the Google Search dev docs but shortly after it was added, the search team removed it from its specific developer docs. Other teams didn't care or didn't notice and left it up. John said it was added for other reasons, not for what you might think.
Google has been saying that no one uses the LLMs.txt file, that Google won't use it, that it can be useless, and you probably should noindex it if you do use it.
So here it is again, Google's Search team is not a fan of the LLMs.txt file. Although I doubt it hurts to have one...
Forum discussion at Bluesky.
