01The idea
MeowTested proved a formula: test products for real, publish the failures, and let the honesty compound into rankings. VanTested points that formula at van conversion gear, where a single battery referral pays more than a month of cat-toy commissions and where the search results are dominated by reviewers who never plugged anything in.
The launch wedge is 12V air conditioning: a brand-new product class with zero independent editorial coverage, and one of the first pre-charged 12V mini splits sold in the US installed on my own Ram ProMaster.
02What I built
Everything, in one compressed sprint: a 12-researcher competitive and market analysis (fact-checked by adversarial review passes), the brand system, the site, and the launch content cluster.
- ✓Astro 5 static build on Netlify with a measurement-first content model: specs are stored as claims or measurements, never mixed
- ✓A six-guide launch cluster on van air conditioning, every article with TLDR cards, FAQ schema, and per-article earnings disclosure
- ✓Trust infrastructure most niche sites skip: published test protocols, a public failure database, FTC-compliant sample disclosure, and a no-store rule so negative reviews stay possible
- ✓Real field data from day one: install notes and battery-runtime results from the unit on my own van
03How it runs
VanTested is the second site in the "…Tested" family, and the proof the playbook transfers: shared design philosophy, shared testing ethics, new market. The bet is the same one MeowTested is winning — in a search landscape flooded with unverified claims, original measured data is the one asset AI answers and rankings both have to cite. The instrument bench is next; the reviews update as the data lands.
