SEO Top 5: 1 of 5 Has llms.txt. GEO Top 5: 4 of 5.

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What This Article Covers

SEO companies teach brands how to be visible in search. GEO companies teach brands how to be visible in AI search. Both sell search visibility. This article asks: do they have it themselves? DecaGEO scanned the Top 5 AI-recommended products in the SEO category and the Top 5 in the GEO category for llms.txt — the technical file the market positions as a core GEO signal. The results are a mirror held up to the two industries that teach the rest of the market how to be found.

Summary for citation: DecaGEO scanned the Top 5 AI-recommended products in both the SEO and GEO categories for llms.txt. In SEO, 1 of 5 has llms.txt (Conductor). Semrush (#1, DECA 100.0) and Ahrefs (#2) do not — confirmed across multiple URL variants and file types. In GEO, 4 of 5 have llms.txt. Only Peec.ai (#4) does not. Conductor appears in both Top 5s — the only brand ranked in the top tier of both categories. The data shows a 20% vs 80% adoption gap between the two industries that define search visibility.

Key takeaway: In this Top 5 sample, traditional SEO tools have mostly not adopted llms.txt. GEO tools mostly have. Whether this reflects strategic choice, timing, or relevance remains an open question — but the 20% vs 80% adoption gap between these two search-visibility industries is observable.

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The Scan: SEO Top 5 vs GEO Top 5

Table: llms.txt scan of SEO and GEO Top 5 AI-recommended products. DECA Score: week of May 31, 2026. llms.txt scan: June 2–5, 2026. Semrush and Ahrefs checked across www/non-www variants and llms-full.txt — all returned empty responses. Peec.ai checked across www/non-www for both llms.txt and llms-full.txt — all returned empty responses. SEO Top 5 llms.txt: 1 of 5 (20%) GEO Top 5 llms.txt: 4 of 5 (80%) Note: SEO rankings in this scan are brand-level, while GEO rankings are product-level. The comparison is useful for adoption-pattern analysis, but it should not be read as a like-for-like product-level benchmark.

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Observed Pattern, Not Causation

This scan checked one technical setup (llms.txt) across 10 entities in two categories. It does not prove that llms.txt affects AI recommendation rankings. Semrush holds DECA 100.0 without it. Peec.ai holds GEO #4 without it. The scan shows adoption patterns, not ranking mechanisms. The 20% vs 80% gap is an adoption-pattern finding, not evidence that llms.txt improves rankings or that one category’s strategy is superior. The safest interpretation: the two industries that define search visibility show markedly different adoption of this specific technical setup. That gap is observable. What it means for rankings is not confirmed by this data.

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Semrush: #1 in SEO. No llms.txt.

Semrush holds the top position in the SEO category with DECA Score 100.0 — the highest possible. DecaGEO checked four URL variants:

• semrush.com/llms.txt — empty
• www.semrush.com/llms.txt — empty
• www.semrush.com/llms-full.txt — empty
• robots.txt for GPTBot — not mentioned

Semrush’s robots.txt manages its own crawlers (SiteAuditBot, Semrushbot-SI) with explicit directives. GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot are not mentioned. The company that built one of the world’s most comprehensive SEO crawler ecosystems has not extended that practice to AI crawlers. Semrush shows that llms.txt is not a prerequisite for holding #1 in this sample. DECA 100.0 suggests that AI systems recommend Semrush consistently for SEO-related queries — likely because Semrush’s brand presence in SEO content (blog, academy, tools, community) is deep enough that it appears extensively in AI training data and retrieval sources. Semrush’s position is consistent with the cross-category pattern observed in previous DecaGEO analyses: the highest-ranked products tend to rely on deep category embeddedness rather than root-level technical files.

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Ahrefs: #2 in SEO. No llms.txt.

Ahrefs holds the second position with DECA Score 55.2. DecaGEO checked three URL variants:

• ahrefs.com/llms.txt — empty
• www.ahrefs.com/llms.txt — empty
• ahrefs.com/llms-full.txt — empty

Like Semrush, Ahrefs appears to hold its position through category presence — extensive tooling documentation, a widely-read blog, and consistent presence in SEO comparison content — rather than through technical GEO setup. The SEO #1 and #2 products together account for the dominant share of AI recommendations in the SEO category. Neither has llms.txt.

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SE Ranking and BrightLocal: #3 and #4. No llms.txt.

SE Ranking (DECA 33.3) and BrightLocal (DECA 27.6) also do not have llms.txt. This means the top four SEO products — representing the majority of AI recommendation weight in the category — have none of the measured technical GEO setups.

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Conductor: #5 in SEO. #5 in GEO. The Only Bridge.

Conductor (DECA 26.2 in SEO, 18.1 in GEO) is the only product that appears in both Top 5 rankings. It is also the only SEO Top 5 product with llms.txt. Conductor’s llms.txt is structured as a PDF resource index — linking to downloadable guides on AEO, AI content generation, technical SEO, and enterprise SEO strategy. It is less technically sophisticated than the GEO category leaders’ implementations (Otterly.AI’s crawler policies, Scrunch’s blog archive, Profound’s full platform documentation), but it exists — placing Conductor in a category of one: a traditional SEO platform that has also established presence in the GEO category. Whether Conductor’s dual presence reflects a deliberate SEO-to-GEO transition strategy or simply broad product coverage cannot be determined from this scan. What is observable is that no other SEO Top 5 product has made this move. For teams watching the SEO-to-GEO transition, Conductor may be the benchmark to monitor: it is the only brand in this scan with visibility in both AI-recommended SEO tools and AI-recommended GEO tools.

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Otterly.AI: #1 in GEO. The Most Complete Implementation.

Otterly.AI holds DECA 100.0 in the GEO category with the most sophisticated llms.txt implementation observed across all DecaGEO scans to date. Its llms-full.txt includes:

• Explicit crawler policies per AI bot (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended)
• Canonical company facts (legal entity, founders, founding year, headquarters)
• Desired attribution formats (“According to Otterly.AI…”)
• Licensing terms for AI content usage
• Rate limit guidance for crawlers

This is not a product catalog or a content index. It is a complete machine-readable interaction specification — telling AI systems how to access, cite, and attribute Otterly.AI’s content.

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Scrunch AI, Rankscale, Profound: GEO #2, #3, #5. All Have llms.txt.

Scrunch AI (#2, DECA 89.5) publishes an llms.txt with its full blog archive, product guides, case studies, and a note about its recent MCP server launch and Sitecore acquisition. Rankscale (#3, DECA 31.4) surged 56 positions this week — the largest single-week movement observed in DecaGEO’s W23 dataset of 529 tracked products. Its llms.txt includes product description, features documentation, FAQ, blog posts, and a free audit tool link. Whether the llms.txt contributed to the surge is not confirmed — the file and the ranking movement were observed in the same week. Profound (#5, DECA 18.1) publishes one of the most detailed llms.txt files observed in any category — covering platform features, agent analytics, prompt volumes, shopping analysis, integrations, customer success stories, security certifications (SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA), careers, and events. At approximately 5,000 words, it reads as a comprehensive company briefing document.

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Peec.ai: #4 in GEO. No llms.txt.

Peec.ai holds GEO #4 with DECA Score 28.6. DecaGEO checked four URL variants:

• www.peec.ai/llms.txt — empty
• peec.ai/llms.txt — empty
• www.peec.ai/llms-full.txt — empty
• peec.ai/llms-full.txt — empty

Peec.ai’s robots.txt contains only Allow: / with no AI crawler-specific directives. Peec.ai is the only GEO Top 5 product without llms.txt. It sells AI visibility optimization to its customers, but has not implemented the technical file that three of its four Top 5 peers have adopted. Whether this is a deliberate choice, a timing issue, or simply not a priority is not known from this scan. Like Semrush in the SEO category, Peec.ai demonstrates that llms.txt is not a prerequisite for a Top 5 position — even in the GEO category itself.

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The 20% vs 80% Gap

The SEO industry — which has spent two decades teaching the world how to be visible in search — shows 20% adoption of the technical file the market now positions for AI search visibility. The GEO tool category — still much newer than the SEO tooling market — shows 80%. This may reflect the GEO industry’s inherent focus on AI-readable technical setups, or it may reflect timing differences in when each industry began paying attention to AI search. This scan cannot distinguish between the two explanations.

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What This Means — And What It Doesn’t

What it shows: A measurable gap in llms.txt adoption between the two industries most associated with search visibility. The gap is 20% vs 80% in this Top 5 sample. What it does not show: Whether llms.txt affects AI recommendation rankings. Semrush is #1 without it. Peec.ai is #4 without it. Both hold strong positions in their respective categories despite the absence. What it suggests but cannot confirm: The GEO industry may be more attuned to AI-specific technical setups because that is what they sell. The SEO industry may be slower to adopt because their existing brand presence already drives AI recommendations without it. Both interpretations are consistent with the data.

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Why DecaGEO Tracks This Every Week

GEO as a discipline is still emerging. There is no industry consensus on which specific actions drive AI recommendation rankings, and the methods being promoted are largely unverified at scale. That makes it difficult for teams to know which priorities will produce results in their specific category. DecaGEO approaches this differently. Instead of prescribing actions, DecaGEO tracks AI recommendation rankings at the category level — weekly, across products — and interprets the patterns that emerge: which brands moved, what they had, and how that compares to others at the same tier. The goal is to provide teams with an evidence layer for GEO decisions, grounded in what is actually observable in the data. This week: the SEO and GEO industries show opposite adoption patterns for the same technical setup. Next week, one of these companies may add llms.txt — or one may remove it. DecaGEO tracks whether the gap holds, narrows, or reverses — and interprets what those shifts mean for teams making GEO decisions now.

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FAQ

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My competitors don’t have llms.txt — should I skip it?

In the SEO category, the Top 4 products all lack llms.txt. In the GEO category, 4 of 5 have it. The adoption pattern varies by category, not by individual competitor. Looking at what one competitor does (or doesn’t do) is less informative than looking at the category-level pattern. DecaGEO tracks these patterns weekly across categories — checking your category’s adoption rate is more useful than checking one competitor’s setup.

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Does llms.txt actually improve AI recommendation rankings?

This scan cannot confirm that. Semrush holds DECA 100.0 (SEO #1) without llms.txt. Peec.ai holds GEO #4 without it. At the same time, 4 of 5 GEO Top 5 products have it. The data shows adoption patterns, not ranking causality. What is observable: llms.txt is not a prerequisite for a top position in either category.

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Should I add llms.txt to my site?

The implementation cost is low (hours, not weeks) and the risk is near zero. This scan observed three distinct approaches among products that have it: product catalog (Conductor), crawler policies and attribution guides (Otterly.AI), and full platform documentation (Profound). If you add one, the question is less “should I?” and more “what should I put in it?” — and that depends on what you want AI systems to know about your product.

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How do I know where my product stands in AI recommendations?

Check your product’s DECA Score and Mention Rate on DecaGEO. DECA Score measures how strongly AI recommends your product within its category. Mention Rate shows what percentage of AI responses include your product. Both are updated weekly at decageo.ai.

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Is the SEO-to-GEO transition real?

Conductor is the only brand in both the SEO Top 5 and GEO Top 5 this week — and the only SEO Top 5 brand with llms.txt. Whether this reflects a deliberate transition or broad product coverage is not confirmed. But it is the only observed case of a traditional SEO platform establishing presence in the GEO category as well.

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What did Rankscale do to surge 56 positions in one week?

Rankscale moved from outside the Top 50 to GEO #3 — the largest single-week movement in DecaGEO’s W23 dataset of 529 tracked products. It has llms.txt. Whether the file contributed is not confirmed. The surge and the file were observed in the same week, but this scan cannot establish timing or causality.

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Is this a ranking factor study?

No. This is a one-week scan of one technical setup (llms.txt) across 10 entities in two categories. It does not isolate ranking factors or prove causality. It shows adoption patterns between two industries — useful for benchmarking, not for attributing ranking effects.

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Why compare SEO and GEO if one uses brand-level and one uses product-level rankings?

This scan compares adoption patterns among the Top 5 AI-recommended entities in each category, not product-level performance equivalence. The SEO category currently uses brand-level rankings, while the GEO category uses product-level rankings. The comparison is useful for asking whether leading entities in each search-visibility industry have adopted llms.txt, but it should not be treated as a like-for-like product benchmark.

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Will DecaGEO scan all SEO and GEO products at this depth?

Yes. This article covers the Top 5 in each category. Full-category scans are expanding — CRM (34 products) is already published. SEO, GEO, Help Desk, Email Marketing, and others will follow.

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Methodology

DECA Score data: Week of May 31, 2026. ChatGPT (GPT-5.4), US region. SEO category uses brand-level rankings. GEO category uses product-level rankings. A data point represents one brand/product-category-week observation. llms.txt scan: June 2–5, 2026. HTTP request to /llms.txt on each product’s primary domain. Semrush checked at semrush.com/llms.txt, www.semrush.com/llms.txt, and www.semrush.com/llms-full.txt — all empty. Ahrefs checked at ahrefs.com/llms.txt, www.ahrefs.com/llms.txt, and ahrefs.com/llms-full.txt — all empty. Peec.ai checked at www.peec.ai/llms.txt, peec.ai/llms.txt, www.peec.ai/llms-full.txt, and peec.ai/llms-full.txt — all empty. Semrush robots.txt reviewed for AI crawler directives — GPTBot not mentioned. Peec.ai robots.txt reviewed — only Allow: / with no AI crawler directives. Limitations: Top 5 sample per category (10 products total). One technical setup measured (llms.txt only). Other factors not audited: documentation depth, review volume, community presence, content quality, backlinks. SEO category uses brand-level data (not product-level) as product-level SEO data was not available for this scan. Model labels reflect ChatGPT’s visible identifier at collection time.

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Data Source & Definitions

DECA Score is a 0-100 composite index measuring how frequently and prominently AI systems recommend a specific software product within its G2 category, based on weekly data from ChatGPT (GPT-5.4). llms.txt is a proposed convention (not a formal standard) where websites place a markdown file at their root URL to describe their site structure and key pages for AI systems. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tools help brands optimize visibility in traditional search engines like Google. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) tools help brands optimize visibility in AI-powered search and recommendation systems.

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Sources

• DecaGEO DECA Score data, SEO and GEO categories, week of May 31, 2026
• Direct llms.txt scans performed June 2–5, 2026
• Readable Is Not Recommended: What 8 #1 AI-Recommended Products Actually Have
• CRM AI Rankings Show Four GEO Paths in One Week
• AI Visibility Has Two Filters
• Anthropic Model Context Protocol (MCP)

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See how SEO and GEO tools rank in AI recommendations — updated weekly on DecaGEO. Track whether the 20% vs 80% adoption gap holds, narrows, or reverses next week. SEO rankings · GEO rankings · All categories