There is a simple test for whether a "best AI SEO tools" list was written by someone who opened the products: check whether the products still exist.
Three entries in this index are not selling anything. All three still appear on published roundups.
Goodie AI
goodie.ai resolves to a Spaceship domain marketplace listing. The asking price is $150,000. There is no product behind it.
Bluefish AI
bluefish.ai redirects to a GoDaddy for-sale parking page. Same situation, no product.
Hall
Hall's site is now an acquisition announcement. It was acquired by Tracksuit, and the page points visitors at a waitlist rather than a product. This one is a genuine outcome rather than a failure, but it is still not a tool you can buy today.
Why they are still listed here
The obvious move is to quietly delete dead entries. This index keeps them, flagged, with the evidence and the date.
Two reasons. First, if you arrived from a list that recommended one of them, the useful thing is an explanation, not a silent absence that makes you assume you typed the URL wrong. Second, the fact that competing lists still carry these names is the clearest available evidence about how those lists are maintained, which is to say they are not.
A directory that never removes anything is a graveyard. A directory that silently removes things is unfalsifiable. Dated entries with the status printed on them is the only version where you can check the work.
How to check any list yourself
Open three or four of the products it recommends. Not the review page, the actual vendor site. Look for a pricing page with a number on it and a product that loads.
It takes about five minutes and it is a better filter than any ranking.