llms.txt / llm.txt and Robots.json Checker/Generator

The checker reads through each of your files and analyzes them line by line, checking every directive carefully to verify that your format matches what AI crawlers need when they process your content.

Every AI company out there uses its own particular user-agent string for its crawler when it visits your site. OpenAI's GPTBot has one particular signature and Anthropic's Claude-web has a different one. Blocking them correctly means you need to get each string just right down to the last character. The tool comes with a built-in database of all these different crawlers, and it can tell you immediately if you've made even a small typo or if you're still trying to block them with an outdated version of the string from six months ago.

The validation process works through a series of different layers that each serve their own role. First up is the syntax check and verifies that all your brackets and colons are right where they should be. Next, the system runs a more thorough examination to determine if your directives will work correctly for AI crawlers specifically. Standard web crawlers usually skip over different commands that AI crawlers have to follow without exception.

At this point, the process gets much more sophisticated. Your file could have different sets of guidelines for five AI companies and each one needs to be handled separately. Each company's crawler works differently and follows its own set of instructions. The tool has to manage these different settings at the same time, and it'll tell you if some of your guidelines don't play well together or if you've missed something and have left parts of your site unprotected.

Real-time analysis continually compares your setup today against the very latest crawler specifications from each company. AI companies push updates to their crawlers all of the time and guidelines that had worked just fine last month could be useless today. The tool automatically pulls in these updates and immediately flags any guidelines in your file that need to be changed. Manual tracking isn't even feasible anymore. Fresh AI crawlers also pop up every couple of weeks, and the ones that we already know about continue changing how they work without much warning.

The LLM.txt file gives website owners a new way to control which AI services can train on their content. What makes it especially useful is how you can set different permissions for each AI bot that visits your site. You might want to block OpenAI from some of your pages while letting Google's AI crawler access those exact same pages. Every AI service has its own policies for working with web content and LLM.txt finally has the tools to manage each one separately based on your preferences.

The syntax for these files is pretty strict. Mess it up even a little bit and everything breaks. Each line has to follow the exact same format with the user-agent name at the beginning, then a colon and finally your directive. Miss that one small colon and the line ends up useless. A decent validation checker will scan through all of the characters in your file and make sure that the AI crawlers can read and execute your instructions properly.

Line breaks are actually one technical issue that can break your robots file. Windows computers handle them one way and Mac systems handle them differently. Get just one character wrong and that whole section of your file won't work. Spaces and tabs can be just as bad. Most developers like to indent their directives because it makes the code much cleaner and easier to scan through. The problem is that when the crawlers see that extra whitespace at the beginning of a line, they skip right over those directives completely. The validation process also needs to check if your user-agent names actually match what the AI services use in real life.

You might accidentally write "OpenAI-Bot" in your configuration file. But the crawler actually identifies itself as "GPTBot" instead. Small errors like these can undermine your blocking work and you won't even know that it's happening. A quality validation tool catches these name mismatches and makes sure that your crawl-rate limits have the right time formats too.

Plain text files have handled AI crawler access for years. But JSON format changed the entire game. JSON gives you much more control over your instructions than plain text ever could and the difference is dramatic.

Plain text files like robots.txt and LLM.txt are pretty limited for setting crawler guidelines. Each directive has to go on its own line and every crawler has to read and interpret them the same way or the whole system falls apart. JSON works differently though. With JSON you get the ability to build these nested sections where each crawler can have its own space that has its own set of directives. All your related directives can live together in one logical place. The best part is that JSON lets you write conditional logic that actually says "if this happens, then do that" and there's no confusion about what the instructions mean.

The Content Powered checker goes through JSON files to validate them properly and catches problems like missing brackets or commas in the wrong places. A single typo or misplaced character can corrupt an entire JSON file and that's why this tool matters so much. It also verifies that your data types are correct across the board. Numbers need to be formatted as actual numbers, strings need to be formatted as actual strings and everything else has to match its right format.

JSON works best if you have multiple AI crawlers that each need different levels of access to your site. Maybe OpenAI's bot can read your blog posts but it needs to stay away from your premium content. At the same time Google's AI might need to see all your technical docs but ignores user comments. JSON lets you spell out these complex scenarios in a format that's easy to read and unambiguous. Every crawler knows just what it can and can't access without any confusion or second-guessing involved.

The checker works with the old plain text format and the newer JSON format at once - it validates traditional robots.txt instructions just fine and can also parse the more advanced JSON structures. Dual support like this makes perfect sense because you can transition at your own pace and your existing setup won't break.

Most website owners have no idea that their robots.txt files are broken and they won't find out until something bad happens. The biggest problem that I see is when site owners write all their directives but never actually specify which bots should follow them. A robots.txt file without a user-agent declaration is useless because the directives won't apply to any crawler at all.

Even sites that do include user-agents usually have directives that contradict one another. A site owner writes one line to block GPTBot specifically and then they add another line that gives all crawlers full access to everything. The second directive is what applies and GPTBot can now crawl your entire site without any restrictions at all. Our checker helps you find these contradictions quickly so you can fix them.

Typos are a big problem with robots.txt files and they happen all of the time. A single wrong letter can make your entire file useless. Maybe you accidentally write "Dissallow" instead of "Disallow" and now that directive won't do anything at all. Or you type " ChatGPT - User" but the bot name is actually "GPTBot" so now OpenAI's crawler just ignores everything you wrote. These kinds of mistakes are everywhere and they usually happen because site owners are in a hurry and don't double-check their work.

Some websites go nuclear and try to block everything with a single slash directive. This backfires spectacularly because now Google and Bing can't access your site either! Your search rankings vanish while the AI crawlers that they should worry about slip right past these outdated directives.

The checker also finds bot names that haven't been relevant for years. E-commerce stores and publishing sites are notorious for this problem. They're still trying to block "Slurp" and "msnbot" while the AI crawlers that they should worry about slip right past these outdated directives.

Characters that need special formatting can break everything if you get them wrong. Escape characters have to be formatted just right and if they're not, your entire file just breaks. A single asterisk placed incorrectly might wind up blocking your entire website when all you wanted was to protect a few of your pages. The checker takes care of these character validations for you and confirms that your directives actually work the way that you intended.

The legal situation around AI and content has turned into an absolute minefield. Some of the biggest publishers in the world have already dragged AI companies to court over unauthorized content use. The New York Times hit OpenAI and Microsoft with a big lawsuit just last year. Getty Images followed suit and targeted Stability AI for allegedly scraping millions of their copyrighted images to train AI models.

Your LLM.txt and robots.txt files serve a helpful legal role when you set them up the right way. These files create a documented paper trail that proves you're trying to control which AI systems can access your content. Courts really do care about this kind of documentation - they need to see that you have made a genuine effort to keep unauthorized bots out.

A simple comparison might help make this whole concept clearer. If a thief broke into your house, one of the first questions you'd want to know is if you remembered to lock the door. Configuration files work just like door locks except that they protect your website instead of your house. The checker tool goes through and verifies that all of these digital locks are working the way that they're supposed to.

Validation records might also save you from plenty of trouble if you ever go to court. The tool automatically generates timestamps and detailed documentation for every restriction that you set up. These records create a strong paper trail that shows your actual intent with the content. You never gave AI companies any permission to train on your work. Actually, you took specific steps to stop them from working with it at all.

AI regulations and laws change every other month. The EU is close to passing big new AI laws that could force companies to respect these technical boundaries. A handful of US states want to have their own training data laws too. Validated files will put you in a much stronger position no matter how the legal situation develops.

When a file isn't configured the right way, it gives AI crawlers the wrong information about what your content actually is.

The checker ran successfully and gave you back a list of AI crawlers that can currently access your content. Perfect! Now comes the part where you decide which bots deserve permission to use your work and which ones need immediate blocking. Attribution policies are where everyone should start their evaluation. Every AI company has a different strategy for crediting sources. A few of them will actually link back to your original content whenever they reference it in their outputs. Most of them will scrape your entire website and never once mention where any of that information came from. You'll definitely want to block the groups that refuse to give you the right credit for your work.

Most websites have different types of content that need different levels of protection. Your regular blog posts are probably the ones that you want Google to find and rank well in search results. But then you have your premium guides or paid courses that need to stay behind that paywall. An effective checker lets you create separate settings for each section of your site. Google can crawl and index your public blog posts all day while the AI scrapers get blocked from your paid materials. It's that granular control that actually makes the difference.

You need to test these changes and you'll definitely want to do that before you make anything permanent on your live site. The checker has a simulation feature built right into it that lets you see what each bot will be able to see after your new settings are in place. Any mistakes or missed details will show up during the testing phase where you'll have a chance to fix them.

The AI crawlers are changing faster than ever. New bots show up practically every month and the ones that we already know about have this habit of switching how they present themselves with zero warning. You need to check on these crawlers regularly to know what's actually hitting your site. I keep a running document with records about which crawlers get blocked and which ones get allowed through. Just add the date and a quick comment about why you made each choice as you update it. Questions always come up months later about why certain decisions were made. With records you'll know just what you were thinking and what factors influenced your decisions at that particular time.