LLM Markdown – Expose Content as .md

FAQ

Does this help LLMs index my content?

It gives crawlers and other clients a predictable, structured Markdown representation and advertises that representation from eligible HTML pages. It cannot guarantee that a particular model, crawler, or search engine will discover, index, or use it.

Does the plugin create physical .md files?

No. The .md URLs are WordPress rewrite routes generated on demand. Cached documents are stored temporarily for performance, but the plugin does not create a parallel file tree or require you to synchronize exported files.

Does this modify my content?

No. It reads the rendered public page and generates a separate response. Posts, blocks, templates, and database content are not rewritten.

Does it support custom post types?

Yes. Any public post type can be enabled under Content Types. Attachments are excluded. Leaving every content type unchecked disables Markdown output entirely.

How do I access a static front page?

Append .md to its normal permalink. The /index.md alias is also available when WordPress is configured to use a static front page.

Does it expose private content?

The plugin serves only publicly viewable content from an enabled public post type. Password-protected content is rejected. The optional Honor Noindex setting also rejects posts marked noindex by Yoast SEO, and integrations can impose additional restrictions with the llm_markdown_can_serve_post filter.

How does the rendered theme affect Markdown?

Markdown is built from the server-rendered canonical page, so blocks, shortcodes, and template output can be included. Browser-only content inserted later by JavaScript is not available. Use Main Content Selectors and Excluded Content Selectors when the theme includes navigation, banners, related content, or other unwanted elements around the article.

Which CSS selectors are supported?

The selector fields intentionally support a practical subset: element names, IDs, classes, combined forms such as article.entry-content, descendant selectors, and direct-child selectors. Separate alternatives with commas or new lines. Attribute selectors, pseudo-classes, and sibling combinators are not supported.

Can images be included?

Yes. Enable Images in Markdown on the Options tab. Images inside the selected content area are converted using their source, alt text, and title; common lazy-loading attributes are recognized. Images are excluded by default.

Is this intended for SEO?

It provides an alternate representation and adds a discovery link to eligible HTML pages, but it makes no ranking or indexing promises. The Markdown response identifies the HTML URL as canonical. Search-engine and AI-crawler behavior varies.

Why does unexpected output appear before the Markdown document?

Some themes, plugins, or hosting layers emit HTML, notices, or other output before .md or negotiated Markdown responses. Enable Response Cleanup on the Options tab under Settings → Markdown Output to remove that unwanted pre-output. This compatibility option is disabled by default.

If the plugin cannot retrieve or extract the rendered page, it returns a non-cacheable 503 Markdown temporarily unavailable response rather than caching an empty or incomplete document. Unsupported, disabled, or protected .md routes return 404 Not Found.

Can clients request Markdown from the normal post URL?

Yes. Enable Header-Based Markdown on the Advanced tab under Settings → Markdown Output. Supported public post URLs can then return Markdown for GET and HEAD requests that explicitly prefer text/markdown. Both HTML and Markdown responses include Vary: Accept so compliant caches can keep the representations separate.

This is an advanced, disabled-by-default feature. A CDN, proxy, server cache, or page-cache plugin that does not honor Vary: Accept may serve the wrong representation. Negotiated Markdown also bypasses browser-side analytics and JavaScript. Clear every cache and test both representations after enabling it.

Conservative matching requires an explicit text/markdown media range. The separate Wildcard Accept Headers option can also permit text/*; */* alone never requests Markdown.

Test HTML:

curl -i -H "Accept: text/html" https://example.com/my-post/

Test Markdown:

curl -i -H "Accept: text/markdown" https://example.com/my-post/

How do I refresh cached Markdown after changing my theme or site layout?

Use Clear Markdown Cache on the Tools tab under Settings → Markdown Output after changing templates, navigation, widgets, shortcodes, or other content that affects the rendered page. Saving the plugin settings, switching themes, and updating navigation menus also invalidate the Markdown cache automatically.

Developers can use the llm_markdown_cache_ttl filter to change the default 12-hour cache duration or return 0 to disable document caching.

What developer filters are available?

Use llm_markdown_can_serve_post for access rules, llm_markdown_is_noindex_post for additional noindex providers, llm_markdown_include_taxonomy to control public taxonomy fields, llm_markdown_front_matter to modify metadata, llm_markdown_markdown_document to filter the completed document, and llm_markdown_cache_ttl to control caching.

What happens to plugin data when I remove it?

Deactivation preserves settings. Uninstalling or deleting the plugin removes its settings, cache-generation option, and generated Markdown transients. On multisite, cleanup runs for every site in the network.