Google Adds Markdown Files To Help Docs But Not Used For Search

Google AI Overviews can show the contents of the markdown files of web pages directly in the snippets within those AI Overviews. Google's John Mueller called this "unexpected" and

Google has updated its guide for optimizing for generative AI search help document to clarify that (1) LLMS.txt files don't help or hurt with search rankings and (2) AI files,

<p>Google's John Mueller responds to the trend of creating a set of markdown pages to mirror HTML content for AI SEO.</p> <p>The post <a

Google's latest Off The Record podcast was titled Markdown vs HTML with John Mueller and Martin Splitt talking about the use cases for both. In short, both said that when it comes