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Top 50 domain adoption is lower than the full corpus

Among the top 50 cited domains, llms.txt adoption is only 6.0%.

The very top of the citation graph is not leaning on llms.txt.

The numbers behind it.

Top 50 adoption
Adoption among the top 50 cited domains.
6.0%
Adoption rate
Domains with llms.txt in the study.
13.3%

The evidence.

Source
The llms.txt Effect

MeasureResult
Top 50 adoption

Adoption among the top 50 cited domains.

6.0%
Adoption rate

Domains with llms.txt in the study.

13.3%

What this study measured.

An observational snapshot.
Tested 14 March 2026.

Read the full methodology

Population and method

Built from HTTP scans of 37,894 AI-cited domains, linked to 337,362 citations and 882 citation snapshots in the Trakkr corpus.

Where the evidence stops

This is an observational study. It measures correlation with citation outcomes, not a controlled experiment.

Adoption is uneven by sector, so raw averages can hide category concentration in SaaS and developer tooling.

The top-5,000 test returns p=0.85. The full scanned sample returns p<0.001 with reported r=-0.065. Neither establishes a causal effect. The public aggregates do not include confidence intervals or document the cohort for citation means and medians well enough to recompute the tests.

What to do with this

That weakens the argument that llms.txt is a prerequisite for elite citation performance.

“Among the top 50 cited domains, llms.txt adoption is only 6.0%.”

The llms.txt Effect - Trakkr Research · Top 50 domain adoption is lower than the full corpus
The llms.txt Effect · Trakkr Research · Updated 4 September 2026

https://trakkr.ai/trakkr-research/llmstxt-effect/facts/top-fifty-domain-adoption-is-even-lower-than-the-full-corpus
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