Query Fanout

See the internal searches AI engines run while answering your tracked prompts. Rankscale ranks those fanout queries, trends activity over time, shows which domains get probed, and surfaces the phrases, concepts, and words engines added versus your prompts.

CATEGORY DIFFERENTIATION

See the retrieval layer, not just the answer

Rank tracking tells you whether you appeared. Citations tell you who got credited. Query Fanout shows the searches the engine ran to decide.

Traditional rank trackers

Rankscale visibility tracking

You only see the finished AI answer, so the retrieval work that produced it stays invisible.

Rankscale records the internal searches issued for each tracked prompt and rolls them up across Brand Details.

Citation reports show who was credited, but not which domains were probed and dropped.

Probed domains, wins, and losses show where your site was searched for, found, or skipped before the citation list was written.

Keyword research guesses what people type into Google, not what models search while answering.

Appendix signals and new fanouts surface the phrases, concepts, and queries models added on top of your tracked prompts.

KEY CAPABILITIES

What Query Fanout shows you

01

Coverage you can trend

Overview opens with Fanout searches, Queries per run, Unique queries, and Run coverage, each with a period-over-period change. Fanout activity over time stacks those searches by engine so you can see which models are probing.

02

Appendix phrases, concepts, and words

Appendix signals extract Exact Phrases, Associated Concepts, and Words engines added versus your tracked prompts. Click a phrase, pair, or word to filter All queries to the fanouts that used it.

03

Probed domains, wins, and shifting probes

See which hostnames engines scoped with site: or a slot, including an Owned badge on your domains. Wins and losses split high- versus low-detection fanouts. New fanouts and shifting probes flag queries that appeared this period or whose probe set changed run to run.

IN THE PRODUCT

The retrieval layer, captured

Probed domains, wins and losses, and appendix signals - the exact views on the Brand Details Query fanouts tab, captured in the screenshots below.

Probed domains

See where engines scoped searches before grounding - owned versus third-party. Each domain shows appearances, prior-period comparison, intensity change, and the engines that probed it, with an Owned badge on your own hostnames.

Wins & losses

Fanouts where you show up strongly versus rarely appear. Wins list high-detection queries with your rank; losses expose the fanouts where detection is 0% - your clearest content gaps.

Appendix signals

Exact phrases, associated concepts, and words engines added versus your prompts, each with occurrence counts. Click any chip to filter All queries to the fanouts that used it.

WHY CHOOSE THIS

Why use Query Fanout?

Turn the hidden retrieval step into reporting you can act on: coverage trends, the extra words models searched for, probed domains, and a full query inventory.

Click a word, land on the queries

Appendix Words, Exact Phrases, and Associated Concepts are not a dead word cloud. Each chip opens All queries filtered to the fanouts that added that token.

From fanout to parent prompt

Every All queries row links back to the tracked prompts that produced it, so you can open the exact search term instead of guessing which query drove the probe.

Shareable with clients

Include Query fanouts on a share link the same way you include Citations or Competitors. Engine, topic, tags, and date range apply as they do on Citations and Sources. Export stays off in shared mode.

FAQ

01 What is Query Fanout in Rankscale?

Query Fanout shows the internal web searches AI engines issue while answering your tracked prompts. Rankscale rolls those fanout queries up across Brand Details so you can see coverage, probed domains, wins and losses, new and shifting fanouts, and appendix signals, then open the full All queries table.

02 Which AI engines does Query Fanout cover?

Rankscale extracts fanout from engines that issue internal web searches, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Copilot. Coverage follows whatever engines you monitor on each search term.

03 What are appendix signals?

Appendix signals are the extra language engines added versus your tracked prompts: Exact Phrases, Associated Concepts (word pairs that often appear together), and Words (individual content tokens with at least two appearances). Click any signal to jump to matching rows in All queries.

04 Is Query Fanout included on every plan?

Yes. Query Fanout on Brand Details is available on Essentials, Pro, Enterprise, and Agency Growth.

05 What is the difference between Overview and All queries?

Overview is the analysis view: KPI strip, fanout activity over time, probed domains, wins and losses, new fanouts, shifting fanouts, and appendix signals (Exact Phrases, Associated Concepts, and Words). All queries is the sortable inventory of every fanout in the selected window, with appearances, detection, average rank, engines, and parent prompt links. Clicking an appendix signal filters that table.

06 How is Query Fanout different from Citations or Sources?

Citations show which URLs were credited in the answer. Sources show the sources box alongside the answer. Query Fanout shows the searches the engine ran before writing that answer, including domains that were probed but never cited.

07 Is there a free trial?

Yes. You can try the Pro plan free for 7 days with a limited credit allowance, so you can explore Query Fanout alongside Citations, Sources, and the rest of Rankscale before committing.

Still have questions?
Contact our team.