Scaling low quality content like this and putting it on your own site is just asking for trouble. It’s just spam aimed at influencing search rankings, clearly against Google guidelines.

The approach that these sites took is ham-fisted, but listicles can still work. Start by not posting it on your own domain, have others post it for you on their sites. Paying for links is against Google guidelines, but you can pay people to say nice things about you. LLMs are especially credulous, they will cite almost anything they come across. Add supporting data and research to back up your claims. Basically PR & marketing aimed at influencing AI citations.