Google Added LLMs.txt To Its Web Sites For Other Reasons Than Discovery

Jan 6, 2026 - 7:41 am 4 — by
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A month ago, Google added LLMs.txt files to many of its developer and documentation sites including the Search developer docs. As you know, Google pulled it off the Search developer docs within a day or so but the LLMs.txt files still remain on many of Google's other sites.

As John Mueller from Google explained then, it was a sitewide CMS change, and John and many of those who operate the content on those sites, were not aware of the change. I guess John was able to remove it from the site he controls but others Google sites still have them live.

A new Reddit thread asks why do those Google sites still have those LLMS.txt files up. Does it mean these are used for LLM Discovery and so on.

John replied to the thread saying, "Neither of these files are findable by default because they're not at the top-level on the site." "It's safe to assume that they're there for other purposes," he added.

What "other purposes," John did not specify but he is clearly saying it is not for the purpose of discovery.

Forum discussion at Reddit.

Oh, the graphic I used for the header of this article is clearly AI-generated...

 

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