𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝗕𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝗜 𝗗𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀

Google AI Overviews answer many questions without a single click. If you search for "best AI tools for video editing," Google gives you a list immediately.

I am building three directory sites: Top AI Tools, Find Games Like, and Open Alternative To. People say these sites are useless because Google already provides the answers.

I disagree.

I am running a six-month experiment. By October 2026, at least one site must reach 200 organic clicks per month from specific comparison or filtered pages. If this does not happen, I will publish my failure and explain what went wrong.

Google AI Overviews are good at summarizing "what exists." However, they fail in three specific areas where my sites win:

• Attribute-based filtering: AI gives you prose. My sites use structured data. You can filter for "offline use" or "mobile app" instantly. • Editorial negatives: AI tends to be positive. My site uses Claude Haiku to generate "avoid if" warnings. This tells you who should skip a tool. • Maintenance freshness: AI relies on old web mentions. My sites pull GitHub data weekly to show if a tool is still active.

I am also targeting the "downstream" search.

Most people start with a broad search like "Notion alternatives." Google answers that. But then, the user searches for "Appflowy vs Anytype performance." This is a comparison query. They want a verdict, not a summary. My sites provide structured comparisons that help people make decisions.

The cost of this bet is low. I spend about $25 a month on tools like Vercel and Turso. I do not need immediate revenue to prove this works.

I will watch for three signs of failure:

  1. High impressions but zero clicks on comparison pages.
  2. Google AdSense rejecting my sites even after I add deep content.
  3. Users moving from Google search to direct ChatGPT chats for all research.

I am testing three narrow sites instead of one big site. This allows me to see which specific type of search intent works best. I will share the raw data and screenshots in October.

Source: https://dev.to/morinaga/why-im-betting-on-ai-curated-directories-when-google-ai-overviews-answer-the-same-queries-590e