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How does Google's AI Overview expand user queries? Tom Capper reveals 10 fan-out categories you can use to improve your prompt tracking and keyword research.

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Happy Friday, Moz fans. In this video, I'm going to be flagrantly ripping off the research of my esteemed colleague, Dr. Pete, who has spent the last six or more months looking into how some of Google's AI Mode and AI Overview and Web Guide responses actually work and what some of the underlying queries behind them are, sort of classifying those, seeing what they do. 

Why is this important?

Now this is useful and interesting for a number of reasons. One of the most interesting reasons, in my opinion, is prompt research, specifically for prompt tracking or to get different sort of ideas about how people might be looking into or indeed Google themselves might be looking into your brand and your products.

This is actually the underpinning that we use in our own prompt suggestions feature in-app as well. 

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But I'm just going to quick-fire go through 10 of the categories that you can use to expand the sort of topic of interest and work through one example, which is again stolen from Dr. Pete, which is "best wireless mice for gamers."

So if that's the sort of topic that you're interested in, how might you expand that, and how might Google expand that into these fan-out queries? So quick-fire 10 categories.

10 fan-out categories to consider

1. Semantic

So number 1, semantic. This is obviously one we're very familiar with from conventional keyword research. Instead of wireless mice, what about cordless mice or other similar sorts of synonyms? 

2. Entity

Number 2, entity. I might bring in a specific brand or product. Is Pulsar a good pick-up for gamers? 

3. Follow-up

Number 3, follow-up. What might I be likely to ask next? How long do wireless mice last? Their battery, presumably. 

4. Attribute

Number 4, attribute. How important is DPI, the sort of sensitivity of the mice? Is higher always better, or is there some sort of limit to how useful this can be? 

5. Anticipate

Number 5, anticipate. What might I purchase next? Maybe I'm going to need a mouse mat, a gaming pad, or whatever that might be. 

6. Factual

Number 6, factual. Say I'm purchasing this as a gift. I might not know what the typical lifespan of a product like this is. How often do gamers replace mice? 

7. Tutorial

Number 7, tutorial. Perhaps I've purchased this for myself, and I want to make the most possible use of it. How to extend mouse battery life? For example, do I keep it plugged in all the time, or something like this? 

8. Perspective

Number 8, perspective. What mice do pro gamers recommend? Or maybe this varies by the game they play or something like this. 

9. Comparison

Number 9, comparison. What mice tend to last longer? Is it optical or laser? Maybe one of these technologies uses the battery faster or something like this. 

10. Transact

Number 10, transact. So I might be interested in where a particular mouse is sold or when it's on sale or something like this. 

Hope you found this useful. I hope you can work this into your prompt research. Thank you very much.

The author's views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.


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