Query Fan-Out Explained: Plan Content for ChatGPT Search
Query fan-out is what happens when an AI search system such as ChatGPT takes one question, breaks it into several smaller searches, runs them, and combines what it finds into a single answer. The person types one question; the system quietly asks the web several. So the page that gets cited is often not the one matching the original question word for word, but the one that clearly answers one of those hidden follow-up searches.