STOP Using Query Augmentation and Query Fan Out Until You Watch This

James Dooley: Hi, today I’m joined with Luis Salifa Gerardo or Herado, sorry. Today’s topic is about query augmentation versus AI query fan out, what the differences are, whether it is the same thing and why there is so much buzz about query fan out. It is a pleasure to have you. Can you explain what query augmentation is?

Luis Salifa Herado: First, thank you for having me and I admire your effort trying to pronounce my name. Regarding query augmentation, anyone watching can search on Google and read one of the early articles that Bill Slawski wrote about query augmentation. In a nutshell it means that once Google relates your brand or site to a query it tries to identify related terms to that query. When Google trusts you enough it starts giving you more and more related terms to rank for because it trusts your site. That is a brief definition. You rank for more terms related to a specific term once trust is built.

James Dooley: What about query fan out? Is that different or the same thing?

Luis Salifa Herado: It is basically the same thing. It is just a new marketing term. The core concept is still ranking for a term and then ranking for related terms. In the SEO community you might hear terms such as query networks, query augmentation or query fan out, but the idea is the same.

James Dooley: I want to dive deeper into the semantic side of this. You said that once Google trusts a site it can rank for more related keywords. How does that trust actually work? Also with query fan out it seems like there is no PageRank or trust factor involved. Does query fan out happen automatically for every query while query augmentation requires trust first?

Luis Salifa Herado: Let’s assume you have a brand and there are related searches around that brand. Query augmentation means expanding the number of terms you rank for around that brand. If Google does not trust your brand then the algorithms will not give you more traffic or clicks unless you have a track record. That track record is historical data showing users searching your brand, clicking your site and searching related terms. For example, we recently launched a marketing campaign for an online jewellery company. We used SEO, pay per click, email marketing and social media to encourage users to search for brand plus product. The campaign encouraged searches like brand plus earrings, brand plus ring or brand plus bracelet. That creates brand demand and historical search data. Once that data is collected Google records those brand searches. Then we can expand the queries such as brand plus bracelet for women or brand plus bracelet variations. That expansion is query augmentation.

James Dooley: When you are doing brand plus product searches would you also reverse the structure and do product plus brand? For example earrings plus brand instead of brand earrings so that your brand might appear in auto suggest when people search for the product term.

Luis Salifa Herado: Yes absolutely. That is tokenisation. You place the brand before the keyword, after the keyword or in the middle. Through PPC, SEO, email marketing and social media we trigger different search variations. The goal is to maximise the probability of getting the click and creating more search data. The important part is combining what marketers want users to search with how users actually search. When those two things align it becomes very powerful.

James Dooley: Once you build that trust and brand search demand Google will then expand the ranking potential of the page with more variations and longer tail keywords. Is that correct?

Luis Salifa Herado: Exactly. For example we have projects that receive between 700 and 1,000 clicks per day just from brand searches. Query augmentation means expanding those searches further so the brand ranks for new product collections or categories connected to that brand.

James Dooley: For someone like me who is not as advanced in semantic SEO or the Koray framework, how can I expand query augmentation and cover all the attributes and facets of a topic? Does the content still need to exist on the page using headings and structured sections to expand the topic?

Luis Salifa Herado: Yes absolutely. Two technical concepts are important here. One is statistical linguistics and the other is distributional semantics. Imagine you have a website with 100 pages but the topic you want to rank for only appears on one page. That is a very small proportion of the site and it will be difficult to rank. But if twenty pages out of one hundred discuss that topic then the probability of ranking increases. That is statistical linguistics. Distributional semantics refers to how attributes and information around an entity are spread across the site. If information only exists on one page the site will not appear authoritative for that topic. To stand out you need multiple pieces of content connected to the same entity and topic.

James Dooley: Does the percentage of topical coverage matter? If I added 500 new pages but only kept 20 pages about that topic would that dilute the topical focus?

Luis Salifa Herado: Yes exactly. That would dilute the topical authority of the site. You need to find the right balance between the main topic and supporting topics. In the past you could simply place the keyword in the URL, title or heading and rank easily. That approach worked decades ago but SEO has become more complex.

James Dooley: The old methods were easier but now you need to expand the topical coverage properly. It is the correct direction but it requires more work. Moving on to query fan out and artificial intelligence. Is this concept actually new or is it just the same idea with a different name?

Luis Salifa Herado: The core principle is the same. The main difference is the interface used to display the results such as AI Overviews. The information organisation is similar but you now need to feed data to another bot or system. For example in one project we tested changing images several times until the image appeared inside the AI overview result. We also tested small content changes to see how the extracted summary changed. At the end of the day you are feeding a bot that answers questions. You must analyse the search results and structure your content so the system can easily extract the information.

James Dooley: That makes sense. With content briefs and semantic expansion what advice would you give someone who wants to improve query augmentation but does not know how? Should they reach out to someone like you or try to learn the framework themselves?

Luis Salifa Herado: Yes they can contact me. Ideally the project should already have a brand with some search demand. At least 200 to 300 searches per month would be a good starting point. Then we perform an audit to analyse the brand strength, search demand and the topics the site wants to rank for. We also analyse the percentage of content coverage and determine whether the site has enough topical content. Then we define the entities and attributes needed and build the semantic content network accordingly.

James Dooley: So that semantic content network works like a topical map. It maps the content, internal links and structure before building the pages. I always compare it to architecture. You design the building first before construction begins. Without that blueprint people can easily build the wrong structure. If someone wants to reach out to you where can they contact you?

Luis Salifa Herado: They can visit seotecnical.com which is the official website. I also publish a daily semantic SEO newsletter at dailyseo.com. They can subscribe there or find me on LinkedIn by searching my name Luis Salifa Herado.

James Dooley: Anyone watching this I hope you enjoyed the discussion about query augmentation and query fan out. Query fan out is currently a popular buzzword in artificial intelligence communities but the underlying concept has existed for many years through query networks and query augmentation. If you have questions leave them in the comments and we can discuss them further with Luis Salifa Herado.