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What is query fan-out, and what does it change on your page?

The Tasadr team · ·5 min read

Query fan-out is when an AI engine splits your customer's question into subtopics, runs several searches at once, and writes one answer from their results. That is why it may cite a page answering a sub-question your customer never typed.

Also known as query fan-out · fan-out queries · sub-queries

On this page (7)

  1. What is query fan-out, in Google's words?

    Google's Arabic announcement of AI Mode, on 8 October 2025, describes it as splitting your question into subtopics and launching a large number of searches at the same time on your behalf.

    Its documentation for site owners describes it as issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources to develop a response, and says this lets its systems find more supporting pages. Its optimisation guide defines it as a set of concurrent, related queries generated by the model to request more information.

    The Arabic name, «توسيع طلبات البحث», is the one Google uses on its Arabic pages; some write «توسيع الاستعلام». It is one of the terms in the Tasadr glossary.

  2. Which engines use query fan-out?

    Google documents it openly and says both AI Overviews and AI Mode may use it to develop an answer. In the other engines' documentation we read, we found no description of it under this name.

    Bing's AI Performance report, in Bing Webmaster Tools, shows what it calls grounding queries: the key phrases the AI used when retrieving content it cited. That is the closest any engine comes to showing you the phrases it searched with.

    OpenAI says ChatGPT may search the web automatically when your question would benefit from current information, and its help page does not say how many searches it runs for one question.

  3. Example: a resort question in AlUla

    An illustrative example: alula-stays.sa is a fictional resort in AlUla, and a family in Riyadh types «وش أفضل منتجع في العلا للعوائل؟» ("what's the best family resort in AlUla?"). These are sub-questions the engine may search before it answers.

    We do not know which sub-questions the engine actually runs; this list is an estimate drawn from the family's question itself.

    • Which resorts are open in AlUla today?
    • Which suit families with children, with connecting rooms or villas?
    • What does a night cost in season?
    • How far is it from the airport and the heritage sites?
    • What activities are there for children?

    And what does the list mean for the resort's site?

    Sections on the resort's page, not separate pages: a families section with the number of connecting rooms, a table of season prices, distances in minutes, and children's activities by age.

    If the page answers three of these questions with plain numbers, it has a place in more than one sub-search, even if it is not the best answer to the first question alone.

  4. What does query fan-out change on your page?

    It makes the engine read your page one sub-question at a time. So write on it what your customer asks after the first question, each with its heading and direct answer, so you can be the source for part of the answer if not all of it.

    • Ask what the customer asks after reading the first answer: the price? the appointment? the district? the conditions? Make each one a heading on the same page.
    • Write the facts an engine compares on, prices, distances, opening hours and branches, in plain sentences, not images.
    • Gather sub-questions from your customers' real questions, as in how to choose the questions you measure on, not from a keyword tool alone.

    Where to read more

    How Google uses sub-questions in AI Mode in particular is in what is Google AI Mode, and how does it choose its sources?, and the full picture of how an answer is built is in how an engine builds its answer, and where its sources come from.

  5. Should you write a page for every sub-question?

    No. Write one strong page that answers the question and its sub-questions. A page for every variant of a question is what Google calls scaled content abuse, and it says the approach does not work in the long run.

    Google's spam policies define that abuse as generating many pages for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings rather than helping users, and list using generative AI tools to produce many pages without adding value among its examples.

    Google's optimisation guide adds that doing so to manipulate generative AI responses in its Search breaks the same policy. At Tasadr (تصدَّر) we apply that to our own site: this term has one page, not one page per name.

Sources

  1. توفير "وضع AI" في البحث باللغة العربية · Google ·
  2. AI features and your website · Google Search Central ·
  3. Google's Guide to Optimizing for Generative AI Features on Google Search · Google Search Central ·
  4. Spam policies for Google web search · Google Search Central ·
  5. Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview · Microsoft Bing ·
  6. Searching the web with ChatGPT · OpenAI Help Center

Frequently asked questions

Are sub-questions the same as keywords?

No. A keyword is what your customer types; a sub-question is what the engine searches on their behalf while it prepares the answer, and your customer may never type it. So your page has to answer the whole need, not repeat the word.

Should I write a page for every sub-question?

No. Put the sub-questions in as headings and FAQs on one page. Many pages for variants of the same question are what Google calls scaled content abuse, and they spread what the engine reads about your business across weak pages.

Does the engine understand my customer's dialect when it fans out?

We found nothing in Google's documentation on how query fan-out handles Arabic dialects. What Google does say is that AI Mode works in Arabic. So write your page in clear Modern Standard Arabic, and include the words your customer says in dialect, such as district and service names as they say them.

Does AI Overviews use query fan-out too?

Yes. Google says both AI Overviews and AI Mode may use the technique to develop an answer, so the summary can link to pages that answer sub-questions the asker never typed. The summary is covered in the guide to Google AI Overviews in Saudi Arabia.