Upon evaluating a whopping 10,000 keywords, I’ve discovered an intriguing insight: pages that successfully rank for Google AI Overview ‘fan-out’ queries are significantly more likely to be cited. In fact, they account for more than half of all citations on these platforms.
From my analysis, it’s clear that pages leveraging these queries dramatically increase their chances of being referenced. As data from Surfer SEO suggests, these pages offer more citation opportunities compared to those focusing solely on the main search query.
An analysis of these 10,000 keywords revealed a strong correlation—precisely, a Spearman of 0.77—between the volume of fan-out queries a page ranks for and its likelihood of citation in Google’s AI Overviews.
Diving into the numbers. I found that pages ranking for fan-out queries are 161% more likely to be cited than those ranking exclusively for the main query. Consider this:
- 76% of the keywords evaluated triggered AI Overviews.
- Through Gemini, I extracted 33,000 fan-out queries.
- Pages ranking for both the main query and at least one fan-out constituted 51% of AI Overview citations.
- In contrast, pages ranking solely for the main query accounted for just under 20%.
Fan-outs outshine the main query. Recognizing the power of ranking for fan-out queries, I noticed such rankings were 49% more likely to earn citations than merely ranking for the main term. When the AI Overviews chose to reference organic results, here’s what stood out:
- Approximately 20% of cited pages ranked only for the main query.
- Conversely, around 30% ranked exclusively for fan-out queries.
Most AI citations skip top ranks. Fascinatingly, about 68% of cited pages didn’t appear among Google’s top 10 results for either their main or fan-out queries. However, for the top three most prominent citations, this figure dropped to roughly 46%.
But there’s more. It’s crucial to understand that correlation doesn’t equate to causation. Additionally:
- Achieving a ranking for fan-out queries alone won’t guarantee an AI Overview citation.
- User context and personalization affect fan-outs, with only about 27% remaining constant across test runs.
- Normal SEO practices don’t fully determine citation selection.
Why this matters to us. If your goal is to be cited in AI Overviews, striving for broader topic authority might be the answer. Surfer SEO advises crafting extensive topical content around core subjects, creating content that naturally responds to a variety of related questions, and allowing AI Overviews to recognize your pertinence across different fan-outs.
Dive deeper with the report. For more in-depth analysis, check out the full study on Ranking for Multiple Fan-Out Queries Dramatically Increases Your Chances of Getting Cited in AIOs (173,902 URLs Studied).
Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
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