How Spaartje Grew Google Clicks 15× by Building for AI First
Spaartje, a Dutch grocery price-comparison app, grew from 136 to 2,039 Google clicks a month between February and September 2026. The key mechanism: pages built as direct answers for AI assistants, which Google then ranked too.
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The Starting Point: Unknown in Google, Misquoted by AI
Spaartje is a Dutch grocery price-comparison app. It compares the prices of about 150,000 products across 13 supermarkets. It is the founders' own product: before Far & Wide became a platform, our team ran the method on it by hand, exactly as we would for a client.
February 2026, before launch
Google impressions in the whole month696
Google clicks in the whole month136
What AI assistants said: an invented «Spaartje+» plan€2,99
What Was Done: Four Agents, One Method
Far & Wide works in four lanes; today each one is an agent in the platform. In seven months 107 changes went into the site, every one of them made with the Far & Wide method; the 65 that change what Google and AI see are dated on the timeline below.
Agent 1 · Technical
A site that Google and AI can read
Structured data (JSON-LD), an llms.txt file and a page for AI crawlers, robots rules that welcome them, full server-side pages and language tags. Every number on the site checked against the product database and shown with its date. About 30 technical changes since April.
Agent 2 · Structure
Pages shaped like the questions people ask
78 store-vs-store comparison pages, topics taken from real Search Console searches
6 answer pages shaped like real questions, including one for people arriving from ChatGPT
Agent 3 · Content
Articles written to be quoted
25 Dutch and English articles: the answer in the first 50 words, headings phrased as questions, the sample size next to every percentage. Since June an article is written every Sunday by itself, and since 13 September each one is also published by itself.
Agent 4 · Authority
What others say about you
The invented «Spaartje+» plan was traced to two outdated sentences on Spaartje's own site and removed at the source. Outside coverage followed in Dutch news, trade and tech media (see Authority below).
The Result in Google: 15× the Clicks in Seven Months
Clicks grew every month after June, the month the articles started writing themselves. March's spike includes launch press coverage, mostly people searching for the name.
Exhibit 1 · Google clicks per month, 2026
Source: Google Search Console, spaartje.com, pulled 9 October 2026.
Google Search Console, per month: clicks · impressions
February136 · 696
March (launch)732 · 3,561
April514 · 18,563
May886 · 35,023
June1,011 · 55,041
July1,280 · 86,674
August1,825 · 100,496
September2,039 · 104,266
Which Changes Moved the Needle
Every dot is one dated change to the site, grouped by the agent that does that work today. After the June and July waves, weekly clicks were about 30% higher three to six weeks later. The April rebuild looks flat in this comparison only because the weeks before it include the launch-press spike of March. Changes overlap and the season matters too, so this shows timing, not proof that any single change caused the rise.
Exhibit 2 · Weekly Google clicks and the 65 dated changes
Source: Google Search Console (weekly clicks) and the spaartje.com change history.
Average weekly clicks, 4 weeks before vs weeks 3–6 after
Find out which of your pages could grow like this.
Why Working for AI Moved Google Too
The pages built so AI assistants would quote Spaartje are the same pages that now win in Google. An answer an AI can lift in one piece is also the answer Google wants to show.
Question searches doubled
In June, 48 searches phrased as questions brought 77 clicks. In the 30 days to 7 October, 108 such searches brought 181 clicks: «is picnic goedkoper dan ah» (position 2.9), «wat is de goedkoopste supermarkt» (4.8), «is jumbo goedkoper dan ah» (3.4).
One answer article: 15 → 203 clicks
«Is Picnic duurder dan AH, Jumbo, Lidl?» was written as a direct answer. It brought 15 clicks in June and 203 in the 30 days to 7 October, at position 4.8.
New people, not just fans
Clicks from searches without the name «Spaartje» grew from 323 to 498 a month (+54%). Comparison pages «Albert Heijn vs Jumbo» (89 clicks) and «Albert Heijn vs Picnic» (62) entered the results.
Exhibit 3 · June vs September 2026
Source: Google Search Console; 1–30 June vs 8 September–7 October 2026. Each row has its own scale.
Exhibit 4 · Clicks per page, June vs September 2026
Source: Google Search Console, clicks per page.
Google position on the searches that sell, September 2026
Which questions do your buyers ask AI, and who gets named? Find out.
Authority: Why Being Written About Matters
AI assistants rarely trust a company's own website alone. Before they recommend a brand they look for other sources that say the same thing: press, trade media, reviews and directories. A brand that only talks about itself stays invisible; a brand others write about gets named. Far & Wide's authority agent shows which outside sources AI quotes in your category and where you are missing.
On the same 50 questions asked in July and again in September, the ChatGPT app mentioned Spaartje in 41% and then 47% of answers (its mention rate); the Gemini app held steady on the same 50 questions (55% → 53%). After the source fix, no assistant repeated the invented «Spaartje+» plan. In July, chatgpt.com was the site's second-largest outside source of visitors after Google.
Answers people search for, language versions on every page (886 → 1,011 clicks)
Jul–Sep 2026
Wrong AI facts fixed at the source, articles that write themselves: 1,280 → 2,039 clicks
What Did Not Work (Yet)
Nine newer «Spaartje vs …» articles have no Google impressions so far.
Average position stayed around 6: Spaartje now appears for far more searches, many new at positions 5–10.
On Gemini the same 50 questions held steady (55% → 53%) rather than rising.
5 changes were taken back: two robots.txt rules, a breadcrumb schema that never rendered, an app schema change, and one article that reused a number removed earlier as unverified.
The growth came from answer-shaped pages and comparisons, not from the number of articles alone.
Key Takeaway
Pages written as direct answers for AI assistants are the pages Google ranks too: Spaartje did the work AI needs and got 15× the Google clicks.
Spaartje is the founders' own product. AI audit numbers before July used an earlier method; only identical questions are compared over time. Visitors from AI are a lower bound, because copied links count as direct visits.
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