A normal web page is mostly wrapper: navigation, menus, scripts, styling, cookie banners, and ads. AI systems have to dig your actual content out of all that, and they often get it wrong. AI-readable alternate files fix this. For each page you generate, SuperSchema produces two stripped-down copies of the real content, one in Markdown (.md) and one in plain text (.txt), hosts them, and gives you two small link tags to drop into your page head. AI crawlers that support alternate content can then read the clean version instead of parsing your full HTML.
Markdown vs plain text #
You do not have to choose between them. SuperSchema always generates both and gives you a link tag for each. They contain the same content in two shapes:
- Markdown (.md)
- Keeps light structure: headings, lists, tables, quotes, and links. Most AI systems handle Markdown cleanly, and it preserves the outline of your page so an AI can tell a heading from a body paragraph.
- Plain text (.txt)
- The simplest possible form, with a labeled header block (title, summary, author, dates, keywords, source URL) followed by the content. Maximum compatibility for anything that just wants raw text.
What is inside each file #
The files are not a raw HTML dump. SuperSchema structures them for AI comprehension. Each file includes:
- A metadata header: title, description, content type, publisher, author (with job title and organization when detected), publish and modified dates, reading time, word count, keywords, and the canonical source URL.
- A Key Takeaways section pulled from your main section headings.
- A table of contents for longer pages (three or more H2 sections).
- The full cleaned body content: headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, quotes, and images, in reading order.
- A Frequently Asked Questions section when the page has question-style headings with answers below them.
- An About This Content citation block linking back to your original page.
How to add them to your page #
SuperSchema gives you two link tags. Add them to the <head> of your page, alongside your schema. They look like this:
<link rel="alternate" type="text/markdown" title="AI-readable version (Markdown)" href="https://llm.superschema.workers.dev/your-path.md">
<link rel="alternate" type="text/plain" title="AI-readable version (Plain Text)" href="https://llm.superschema.workers.dev/your-path.txt"> - Generate schema for the page (the alternate files are built at the same time).
- Copy the two alternate link tags SuperSchema provides for that page.
- Paste them into the <head> of your page, next to your schema script.
- Publish. The tags point to files SuperSchema already hosts, so there is nothing else to upload.
Availability #
Hosted alternate files are part of the AI-readability feature, which is on for paid plans. On the Free Trial the files still get generated for each of your included generated pages, so you can see exactly what they contain, and hosting turns on when you move to a paid plan.
| Plan | Alternate files |
|---|---|
| Free Trial | Generated for your included pages so you can preview them; hosting enabled on upgrade. |
| Essential and up | Generated and hosted, with the live link tags ready to paste. |
How updates and versions work #
Each file reflects your page content at the moment it was generated. When you regenerate a page, SuperSchema builds a fresh version, increments the version number, and re-hosts it. The file URL carries a version parameter (for example ?v=2) so AI systems and caches pick up the new copy instead of a stale one.
- The files do not silently re-crawl your page on their own. Regenerating the page is what produces a new version.
- After a meaningful content change on your page, regenerate so the clean version matches what visitors now see.
- SuperSchema tracks a content hash per file, which is what lets monitoring flag when your live alternate file has drifted from what it generated.
How this shows up in your scores #
The Alternate category is one of the five parts of your SuperSchema Score, and it is worth 20% of the total. It checks whether an AI-readable Markdown version exists, whether a plain-text version exists, and whether both are reachable. Adding the alternate link tags is the most direct way to lift that category.