Claude

llms.txt is a proposed plain-text file placed at the root of a website (e.g. /llms.txt) that summarizes the site's purpose, lists its most important canonical URLs, and provides AI crawlers with a compact, structured map of what the site is authoritative on. It is the AI-engine analog to robots.txt and sitemap.xml, designed specifically to help large language models index, ground, and cite the right pages. Why it matters: As ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Overviews, and Bing Copilot increasingly drive discovery, llms.txt is becoming a meaningful AEO and GEO infrastructure layer. A well-crafted llms.txt tells AI engines exactly which pillar guides, services, and authoritative resources to cite when answering questions in the brand's domain — reducing the risk of being misrepresented or omitted. Sites without llms.txt are not penalized, but sites with a clean, accurate llms.txt give themselves a structural advantage in AI citation outcomes. Smart Money Media's own llms.txt is publicly available at /llms.txt, and any site can generate a spec-compliant file in 30 seconds with our free llms.txt generator at /tools/llms-txt-generator.

Source attribution is the inline citation behavior of AI search engines — the linked sources that appear next to or beneath an AI-generated answer. Different engines attribute differently: Perplexity cites aggressively with numbered footnotes, ChatGPT Search shows source cards, Google AI Overviews surfaces a small carousel of sources, and Claude cites sparingly but reliably. Why it matters: Source attribution is the new SERP. A brand that gets attributed in an AI answer captures both clicks (for users who follow the citation) and trust signals (the brand becomes associated with that answer for every user who reads it). AEO is fundamentally about earning more, better-positioned source attributions.

ORM stands for Online Reputation Management — the operational discipline of monitoring, shaping, and defending what appears about a brand, executive, or project across Google search results, AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overview, Claude), social platforms (X, Reddit, Discord, Telegram, Warpcast), review sites (Trustpilot, G2, Glassdoor, Google Business Profile), and earned media coverage. Why it matters: ORM is distinct from PR. PR is offensive — earn coverage, build narrative, compound authority. ORM is defensive — monitor mentions, counter coordinated FUD campaigns, correct factual errors, suppress inaccurate or outdated negative URLs by ranking authoritative content above them, and rebuild reputation after a triggering event (exploit, depeg, regulatory inquiry, founder controversy, FUD attack). The four working elements of credible ORM are monitor, respond, suppress lawfully, and rebuild — run in parallel, not sequentially. Crypto ORM specifically operates inside the FTC Endorsement Guides, Section 17(b) anti-touting rules, Section 5 registration constraints, and platform terms of service. ORM tactics that involve Astroturfing, fake reviews, undisclosed paid commentary, coordinated bot pushback, court-order forgery, or 'guaranteed first-page suppression in 30 days' are not reputation management — they are FTC and SEC enforcement risk dressed up as a service. Credible ORM treats AI Overview citations, Wikipedia presence, and structured-data entity signals as first-class reputation surfaces alongside the classic Google SERP.

Grok is xAI's large language model, integrated natively into X (formerly Twitter) and available standalone. Grok has unique real-time access to the X firehose, which makes it the dominant AI engine for breaking news, social sentiment, and live event queries. It also indexes the open web for grounded answers. Why it matters: For brands whose audiences live on X — crypto, AI, startup, finance, and political verticals — Grok visibility translates directly to in-platform discovery. Optimization combines standard AEO (schema, entity signals) with an active, on-brand X presence that produces the social signals Grok weights heavily.

ClaudeBot is Anthropic's web crawler, used both for collecting training data and for real-time retrieval when Claude answers a user query that requires fresh web information. Site owners control ClaudeBot access via robots.txt. Anthropic also operates a separate user agent, anthropic-ai, for historical training crawls. Why it matters: Blocking ClaudeBot removes a brand from Claude's training corpus and from real-time Claude answers — a meaningful loss given Claude's adoption inside enterprise tools. Allowing ClaudeBot, paired with a well-structured llms.txt file, maximizes the chance of Claude citations.

Google AI Mode is Google's dedicated conversational search experience that replaces the traditional ten-blue-links interface with a multi-turn, AI-generated answer surface powered by Gemini. Unlike AI Overviews — which appear above standard SERPs — AI Mode is a separate destination where users ask follow-up questions, refine queries, and receive synthesized responses with inline citations. Why it matters: AI Mode represents Google's commitment to AI-first search and is rapidly becoming the surface where high-intent commercial and research queries are answered. To be cited in AI Mode, brands need strong entity signals (Wikidata, Knowledge Graph), structured data, authoritative third-party mentions, and content written to answer questions in clear, extractable passages. Optimizing for AI Mode is core AEO and GEO practice.