229: Does llms.txt Work? What 137,000 Domains' Server Logs Show

Most of what's sold as AI search optimization has never been tested by the people selling it, and this episode is me checking the biggest one against server logs. Ahrefs looked at 137,000 domains in June: 97% of llms.txt files got zero requests in May, and the biggest readers of the rest were SEO audit tools. I also lay out the line I use to sort every pitch: a hack tries to influence what the machine says about you, architecture changes what a machine can read and do on your website.

Chapters

00:00 The AI optimization economy and its zero evidence
02:50 llms.txt checked against 137,000 domains
06:00 The main readers of llms.txt are SEO audit tools
08:53 Why this market keeps producing hacks
10:23 Visibility scores and the prompt problem
12:43 Every generation of hacks dies the same way
15:08 What survives model updates
18:39 The mirror: fix what the internet thinks you are

Key Numbers

• 137,000 domains in Ahrefs' June 2026 server-log study
• 28% had a valid llms.txt file, and that number is the ceiling, their customers skew technical
• 97% of those files got zero requests in May, not low traffic, zero
• Of the 3% that got fetched, around 22% of the readers were SEO audit tools, the tools that flag you for not having the file
• My own Cloudflare logs at nohacks.co show the same thing, nobody fetches it

Three Takeaways

1. The pitch is a screenshot, the truth is in the logs. Before you pay for any AI visibility work, ask for evidence at the level of server logs, and watch what happens.
2. A hack tries to influence what the machine says about you. Architecture changes what a machine can read and do on your website. The first is rented and dies at the next model update, the second is owned.
3. LLMs are a mirror of everything happening online. If ChatGPT doesn't call you the best X for Y, the honest question is whether the internet agrees you are, and that's the problem worth fixing.

What to Do

• Sort anything you bought or got pitched this quarter with one question: does it change what a machine can read and do on the website, or what the machine says about it?
• Ask any vendor for their evidence before money leaves your account. Logs, tests, a mechanism, the same bar you'd use for anyone touching revenue.
• Check your own server logs for who actually fetches your llms.txt, it takes five minutes
• Try this: open free ChatGPT logged out of search, type "what is [your name] known for," and send me the screenshot at hi@nohacks.co. I want to see what you get.

Sources

• Ahrefs llms.txt server-log study (June 2026): https://ahrefs.com/blog/llmstxt-study/
• My identity-vs-capability piece: https://nohacks.co/blog/agentic-web-identity-vs-capability
• Weekly newsletter: https://nohacks.co/subscribe

No Hacks is a publication about the agentic web. Articles, a weekly podcast, and a newsletter for SEO, CRO, and web professionals who want to stay visible, trusted, and findable as agents take over. Hosted by Slobodan "Sani" Manic.

Subscribe at https://nohacks.co/subscribe

Transcript

[00:00:00] We need to talk about hacks. Most of the stuff that's sold as, quote-unquote, "AI search optimization" has never really been tested by most of those people selling it

[00:00:15] You know, the tricks don't survive contact with the reality, contact with the server logs. So today, let's talk about them. Let's talk about hacks. Let's talk about AI hacks, and let's talk about why the market, why digital marketing keeps producing short-term tricks And let's talk about how we can all avoid that.

[00:00:42] This is No Hacks, agentic web, no hype. It's not easy to do, but I keep trying

[00:00:51] So here's where we are. Over the past year or so, there's a whole economy that's grown around one promise. We will get your ass into AI answers. There are special files you're supposed to add. There are visibility scores. There are citation services to get you mentioned in the places where AI systems are supposedly getting the information from.

[00:01:13] There are checklists. There's Reddit bombing. Some of that costs a few euros a month. Some of it is a lot more expensive. But you know what? Almost none of it has evidence. And I'm not saying the evidence is weak. I'm saying there's zero evidence for things that are being sold as AI search optimization service.

[00:01:36] The typical pitch I keep getting, is either a screenshot of, ChatGPT or, , sometimes they're not even a screenshot. It's just a, "We can make this work for you." And I, I get why it sells, 'cause AI answers and, and LLMs and GEO, AEO, it's the blackest of black boxes.

[00:01:57] You cannot see inside the system that decides whether your website exists, whether it should be mentioned. And when people cannot see, they pay someone who sounds certain. Think about the people that in the-- not the early days, but like the early days of SEO growing. There are people, I'm not going to name names, but there are people that come to mind that just sounded confident.

[00:02:22] They were not good at their job. They just sounded confident That's the market right now. The fear of a black box, big budget because spending money on traditional SEO is not as wise as it used to be, and a lot of people pretending they're confident. That's the entire market. So let's do what nobody selling this stuff does.

[00:02:50] Let's actually check one of those. Let's actually check one of the greatest things in the world of GEO. Ask any LLM how to optimize a website for LLMs, and this will be number one or number two or both. I'm talking about llms.txt. If you are lucky enough to never have heard of llms.txt, it's a text file you put on your website, kind of like robots.txt, but for LLMs.

[00:03:20] Not really, but kind of. And the idea is that the AI system will read it to learn who you are, where your important pages live, all that kind of stuff. It's a, it's a very plausible idea. On paper, this sounds good. Now, there's a spec, there's a proposal, there are numerous conference talks, and there are thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of websites adopting this.

[00:03:51] SEO tools are flagging websites that don't have one. Agencies just put this as, you know, in a deliverable. This is a task that an agency doing AI SEO, GEO, AEO, for a client must do because the clients expect it. There's one problem. There's one problem with llms.txt, and it doesn't make a lot of sense today.

[00:04:16] It might in the future, it could be llms.txt, it could be something similar, but today it does not make sense. In June, so two months ago, Ahrefs published a study. They looked at server logs across a hundred and thirty-seven thousand domains. Server logs, not analytics, not Google Analytics or anything like that.

[00:04:37] Server logs.

[00:04:39] What do you think they found?

[00:04:43] So 28% of the domains that was observed in this study had a valid llms.txt file. Sure, and Ahrefs customers are more technical, they're more advanced, so 28% is probably as high as this number could ever be. Still, that's enormous adoption for a file that appeared out of nowhere. Second number, and I want you to pay attention to this Listening?

[00:05:13] 97% of those llms.txt files across 137,000 domains got... You wanna guess how much traffic they got in May? Zero. Zero. So not occasionally visited. Zero for a month. Zero requests. And that's exactly what I'm seeing at, at, at nohax.co. I'm looking at Cloudflare logs. Nobody cares about these files. So all the crawlers, GPTbot, Cloudbot, Perplexity bot, everything else, the systems that this file was invented for, they are happy reading HTML Huh.

[00:06:00] Now, there's a fun detail on the 3% of domains that had something fetch the file

[00:06:10] Of those 3% of domains that had s- anyone look at their llms.txt, 22% of those readers of llms.txt files were... You're not ready for this. SEO audit tools, the tools that tell you that you have a problem if you don't have an llms.txt file. That's the main thing on the internet that reads llms.txt

[00:06:37] So if someone tells you that this will improve your website in any way, they're selling you a hack Now, does this file have a good potential use? Yes, it does. Absolutely. And even Google has it in Lighthouse for the agentic, uh, check, agentic readiness, I don't know what they call it. They will check if you have an llms.txt file, if it's formatted well, all that stuff.

[00:07:08] If you are a developer, you can just point your coding agent, assistant, whatever you use at an llms.txt file on a documentation website. And for that, it kinda works. It's a niche tool. This has nothing to do with AI visibility, with AI search. And look, every client I've had this year has at least asked about llms.txt.

[00:07:33] I don't know how they learn about it. But just like the rest of the AI industry, this thing is so loud and so useless, not rest of AI, most of AI industry, so useless that I just don't get it.

[00:07:49] It's a markdown formatted text file. There's nothing fancy about this. And according to this study, well, nobody's reading the file. So that's one thing. Llms.txt, it's been bothering me for a long time because, you know, you know those Jordan Petersons and Hubermans and all those grifters and scammers, they will tell you something that sounds like it makes sense. And I'm not suggesting that the entire AI search industry, I don't know if that's the name of the industry, but it-- that, that entire category is trying to be Jordan Peterson.

[00:08:31] I hope not. But If someone opens with llms.txt and tells you that they will put you in ChatGPT, run. Run. Run away, don't look back, and never-- Just block their email. So the question really is why does this keep happening?

[00:08:53] There's always some stupid hack that if you think about it for a second, you realize that there's no way this makes sense. Like, stuff your page with keywords years, decades ago. This is so stupid. If it works, it works because the system that's supposed to use this and monitor this is not advanced enough.

[00:09:14] It will stop working, and it'll get punished. Same thing with Reddit bombing. I don't see a lot of that anymore, but the GEO strategy for a while, maybe still is, for a while, was just post all the things about your brand, just listicles or whatever on Reddit, comparisons, and, and, and then ChatGPT will cite that.

[00:09:36] Look, that, that's nice and sweet, but you know it's a hack when you start doing it, and you know it's going to stop working when you start doing it. So the conditions for this are really, really good because this AI thing, LLMs, it- it's a black box for people who are building these things. Nobody outside a few labs can even observe what's happening accurately.

[00:10:00] I, I don't think they can, but they, they, they got a higher level of accuracy than us. So everybody has real fears because the traffic reality is shifting. We're going away from SEO and, and Google sending clicks, and now those budgets need to go somewhere, and you need to show something for them. And it just needs to be spent.

[00:10:23] And that combination produces products and situations that just, just don't make a lot of sense. Look at visibility scores. Like a vendor will sell you a number that just says how visible you are to AI. Not all vendors, but it's a selling point for a lot. I get those pitches daily. There's a new AI visibility tool every day that wants to be featured on the blog or podcast And what does it even mean how visible you are to AI? What, what's the prompt? If I prompt all the LLMs about something that's specifically about me, I'll be very visible Fun fact, if you wanna go on a, on a LLM deep dive rabbit hole, go to free ChatGPT, so you're not logged in.

[00:11:20] You're logged in, but it's free, you're not paying. So it doesn't use, uh, web search by default. And just type in what is, and then your first name, last name, known for. And just send me screenshots. hi@nohackseo. I wanna see what you're getting, 'cause I'm not happy with what I'm getting. It's disturbing. So visibility scores are just, um, a grading exam for the test that you're writing, the way most people are selling, because they'll just pick some prompts that are easy to be mentioned for.

[00:11:59] I'm not saying it's all like visibility, AI visibility, share of voice, all that stuff. That's not fully a scam. But the way it's being sold will get you into ChatGPT. I mean, you ask ChatGPT something, if it doesn't have you in the knowledge base before the model cutoff, training data cutoff, it will just search.

[00:12:21] It will use SERP API to search Google or get Google data, and it will get whatever's ranking on Google or wherever else. Let's talk about citation farming next. The prompt stuffing, all those things that make very little sense to me. They're all just like anything else with AI.

[00:12:43] They're a sexy demo where you can show that something is happening or suggest that something is happening But it's not new. Every generation of search produced the hacks. I mentioned keyword stuffing, there were the link farms, doorway pages, and every generation of hacks just died the same painful, boring death.

[00:13:08] And the ones selling that They're not there to explain what failed. They just move on

[00:13:17] I wanna feel bad for people getting burned because there are some people that are just getting scammed into this. But for people doing the scam, I, I just, uh, no. No, no, no, no. So my position about all this, and like I've been talking about this on the podcast, I've been writing about this on the blog. My, my, my take is that I really believe that your next million visitors to your website will not be human.

[00:13:42] I do believe that the machines that are now reading and citing websites are moving into using the websites, buying from websites. That's what this podcast is about. GEO stops at the door. It just focuses on read and cite. I, I think there's more. I think there's a lot more. So there's one part that there's a lot of nonsense being sold, and there's also my belief, I really think that this is going somewhere.

[00:14:13] I really think that the internet is changing, and it will never go back to how it was. And both of those things can be true at the same time. So I'm not anti-urgency to change things. I'm not anti-AI in general. I'm, I'm just anti-unevidenced, for lack of a better , word. But the shift is real. The shift is measurable.

[00:14:38] But a lot of stuff, the stuff that's being sold simply is not

[00:14:44] By the way, a reminder, I have a weekly newsletter. If you're not subscribed to that, this is where I try to share the most important links, uh, from the previous week. I usually send them on Wednesdays. I might change the day. I will see about that. But if you're not subscribed, please go to nohacks.co/subscribe.

[00:15:04] It's also linked in the episode description.

[00:15:08] Back to the episode, back to hacks. So as I said, just being a purely a skeptic, it, it, it doesn't really do much So if I tell you that all those tricks don't work, and I really believe they don't, I'm not seeing any of that working. I, I need to tell you what I think does work.

[00:15:30] And I'll bore you to death because what works is boring. There's a reason this podcast is called No Hacks. I, I named it in 2021-- 2020 before launch, really. Before any of this existed. We didn't have LLMs back then. It was... Well, it was the pandemic, so it wasn't better times, but, ah, it was easier without the LLMs.

[00:15:54] The name of the podcast, I don't ha- I don't hate the, the HBO show Hacks. I love it, so it's not that. But the name of the podcast is really fundamentals over tricks. So what survives a Google update? What survives model updates? It's simple. It's boring as hell, but it's simple. It's a structure that a machine can read without getting confused

[00:16:20] it's facts that are stated plainly enough to avoid being left on the page and survive being pulled out of the page and used somewhere. It's real capability that an agent can call on the page, an actual endpoint defined in whatever way that answers an actual question for that agent. It's, it's architecture over short-term tactics And if you want my definition, a hack in this space will try to influence what the machine says about you, not what you are and what you do, but try to have that image distorted.

[00:17:03] Architectural changes change, changes what you do and how you do it and how you say it, and then based on that, the way a machine can read and what it can do on your website. The first one is purely rented. It's short-term. It might work, then the model gets updated, and it doesn't work anymore.

[00:17:23] The second one is fully owned And I want you to think about that. Just think about all those Google updates over the years, it was painful for a lot of websites, and there was a lot of complaint.

[00:17:36] And, and, and now when there's a Google update, when there's a YouTube, uh, punishing channels and demonetizing channels, yeah, yeah, dude, you knew you were doing something wrong, and now the time is up and doesn't work anymore. I'm sorry, but I'm really not sorry about that

[00:17:52] If something is a hack, it's designed to stop working. If it's an architectural structural change, it's not going to stop working. And that shift to the non-human visitors, I know it's early, I know agents are barely buying, barely doing stuff. The, the foundation for that is being set this year in, in particular.

[00:18:15] But that shift to non-human visitors is very, very, very real And that causes a lot of panic. That causes a lot of confusion. But the way to make sure you're ready when you don't know what the way to prepare is, just focus on doing all the fundamental stuff the best you can

[00:18:39] So I'm not saying all those products that help you track AI visibility are necessarily bad. I'm saying if your primary focus is being best X for Y in ChatGPT today or Perplexity or Claude or Gemini Maybe ask yourself if you really are the best X or Y. If your product is, if the world and the internet think you are, if they agree on that.

[00:19:08] And maybe that's the problem you need to fix because LLMs are really nothing but a mirror of everything happening online by design. They stole the internet, and that's what we get. Let me know what you think about this. hi@nohacks.co. I really wanna hear from you. Thank you for listening. Talk to you next week