WordPress Setup

Before You Start

You'll need access to one of the following:

• FTP/SFTP credentials, or
• Your hosting provider's File Manager (cPanel, Plesk, etc.), or
• WordPress admin access plus a file-editing plugin

If you only have WordPress admin access and no server access, skip to Option B — No FTP Access below.

Option A — Direct Server Access (Recommended)

This is the most reliable method and matches the general Installation guide, with WordPress-specific notes below.

1. Locate Your WordPress Root

Connect via FTP/SFTP or File Manager and navigate to the folder containing wp-config.php, wp-content/, and wp-admin/. This is your site root — root-level files go here.

2. Upload Root Files

Upload robots.txt, llms.txt, and llms-full.txt directly into this root folder, alongside wp-config.php.

Important: Many SEO plugins (Yoast, RankMath, All in One SEO) virtually generate a robots.txt file even if one doesn't physically exist on the server. If you upload a static robots.txt and your AI Discovery Layer rules aren't showing up when you visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt, see SEO Plugin Conflicts below.

3. Create the Semantic and Markdown Folders

In the same root folder (next to wp-content), create two new folders: semantic and markdown. Upload the corresponding files into each.

4. Fix the /markdown/ and /semantic/ 403 Error

WordPress's .htaccess rules typically don't interfere with static folders like these, but if you get a 403 when visiting the folder directly, upload the included index.html file into /markdown/ to resolve it. See Installation for details.

SEO Plugin Conflicts with robots.txt

If you're running Yoast SEO, RankMath, or All in One SEO, these plugins often generate a dynamic robots.txt automatically, which can conflict with a static file upload.

To check: Visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt. If your AI Discovery Layer rules (the User-agent: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, etc. blocks) aren't appearing, your plugin is likely serving its own version instead of your uploaded file.

Each of these gives you a text box — paste your full AI Discovery Layer content in, merging it with any existing rules rather than replacing them entirely.

Option B — No FTP Access

If you only have WordPress admin login and no server/FTP access, you have two paths:

Use a File Manager Plugin

1. Install a plugin like WP File Manager or File Manager from the WordPress Plugin directory
2. Activate it, then navigate to your site's root directory from within the plugin's interface
3. Upload your files the same way as described in Option A

Use Your SEO Plugin for robots.txt Only

If you only need to update robots.txt and don't need the /semantic/ and /markdown/ folders yet, your SEO plugin's built-in robots.txt editor (see above) lets you do this without any file access at all.

Note: llms.txt, llms-full.txt, /semantic/, and /markdown/ still require either server access or a file manager plugin — there's no native WordPress feature for these yet.

Handling the 7 Common WordPress 404s

When setting up AI-readable files, you may also notice unrelated legacy 404 errors in Google Search Console — old test posts, outdated URLs, or pages that moved when your site was redesigned. These aren't related to your AI readability setup, but cleaning them up improves your overall crawl health.

This isn't required for your AI files to work, but a cleaner crawl profile means search engines and AI crawlers spend more of their crawl budget on your actual content.

Verifying Your Setup on WordPress

Same as the general installation guide — visit each URL directly:

https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt
https://yourdomain.com/llms.txt
https://yourdomain.com/semantic/index.json
https://yourdomain.com/markdown/index.md

Then submit your updated sitemap in Google Search Console → Sitemaps, and use URL Inspection to request indexing for your new files. See Validation for the full process.

Custom 404 Page (Optional)

If you'd like to replace WordPress's default 404 template with a custom-branded one (such as the one AIA Matrix can generate for Professional plan users):

1. Upload your 404.html file to your theme folder or site root
2. Use a plugin like 404page to set it as your active 404 template, or add the following to your theme's functions.php:

add_action('template_redirect', function() {
    if (is_404()) {
        include(get_template_directory() . '/404-custom.html');
        exit;
    }
});

Still Stuck?

See Troubleshooting for common error messages, or contact support@aiamatrix.com with your site URL and we'll take a look.