Why I’m betting on AI-curated directories when Google AI Overviews answer the same queries

The comparison and filtered-browse rows are the actual load-bearing columns of this bet.

Why the cost structure matters for intellectual honesty

At $25/month, I can run this experiment for a year without needing revenue to justify continuing. I’m not under pressure to interpret ambiguous signals optimistically.

Compare that to a project burning $200/month on infrastructure: you’d rationalize flat Search Console data as “still in the sandbox phase” past the point where the data actually says something. The full cost breakdown is genuinely minimal — Vercel Pro at $20, Turso starter at $0, Claude Haiku API in single-digit dollars for monthly ETL runs, GitHub Actions on free minutes.

I won’t claim AdSense is approved or revenue is flowing until it is. Right now, AdSense rejected the *.vercel.app version of the sites. I’ve moved to custom domains and verified them in Search Console. I’m waiting for real crawl data before making any claims about what’s working.

What would change my mind

Three outcomes would tell me the bet is wrong:

Impressions but near-zero clicks at 90 days. If Search Console shows my pages appearing as AI Overview citation sources but click rates stay near zero on comparison pages specifically, Google is extracting my signal without distributing traffic. That’s the worst-case scenario — I’d need to rethink the format entirely.

AdSense keeps rejecting after genuine depth improvements. The original rejection was partly a *.vercel.app domain issue, but if Google’s classifier still rates the pages as thin after I’ve rebuilt with real structured content and specific editorial attributes, my model of what “quality” means to the classifier is wrong.

Comparison queries migrate fully to LLM chat. If people stop typing “X vs Y” into Google and start asking ChatGPT directly, the downstream click I’m betting on disappears. I don’t see evidence of this happening at scale for research involving specific attribute constraints — but I’m monitoring query volume patterns month-over-month.

The first outcome is the one I’d want to see early. Impressions with near-zero clicks on comparison pages by month 3 would tell me to pivot the format immediately rather than wait six months for a conclusion I could have reached sooner.

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FAQ

Why three sites instead of one authority site?

Three narrow sites let me test three different intent types simultaneously. Games-like, AI tools, and OSS alternatives attract different queries and different audiences. One site would take longer to produce the same signal volume about which format works. The original architecture post covers the reasoning.

How does Claude Haiku generate the structured editorial fields?

Each ETL run sends entries through a shared Claude Haiku client that uses system-prompt caching to amortize the cost across batch runs. The prompts are tuned to force specific attribute outputs — avoid-if caveats, audience fit, freshness status — not open-ended descriptions.

What if one site works and two don’t?

That’s a useful outcome, not a failure. The format that works tells me something specific about the intent type. I’ll invest in what works and document what didn’t.

Where will you publish the October 2026 verdict?

On this blog, with raw Search Console screenshots. I’ll publish regardless of whether the numbers are favorable.

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Part of an ongoing 6-month experiment running three AI-curated directory sites. The technical claims here are real; this article was AI-assisted.