{"id":3060,"date":"2025-08-20T10:23:41","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T10:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/is-chatgpt-really-powered-by-google-118931-fan-out-queries-analyzed\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T10:23:41","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T10:23:41","slug":"is-chatgpt-really-powered-by-google-118931-fan-out-queries-analyzed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/is-chatgpt-really-powered-by-google-118931-fan-out-queries-analyzed\/","title":{"rendered":"Is ChatGPT Really Powered by Google? 118,931 Fan-Out Queries Analyzed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"author-desktop with-banner\">\n<div class=\"post-navigation2\">\n<div id=\"fright\" class=\"share-post-top-bottom subscr-fright\">\n<p>Get the week&#8217;s best marketing content<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p> <span><\/p>\n<p>Given OpenAI\u2019s close relationship with Microsoft, many expect that ChatGPT\u2019s retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) process would use\u00a0Bing.<\/p>\n<p>However, over the past months, <a href=\"https:\/\/newsletter-alekseo-com.translate.goog\/p\/searchgpt-bing-google?_x_tr_sl=fr&amp;_x_tr_tl=en&amp;_x_tr_hl=en&amp;_x_tr_hist=true&amp;ck_subscriber_id=2055546680&amp;utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=%F0%9F%94%A5%2BThe%2BUpdate%2Bis%2BGetting%2BWarmer%2B&amp;%2BMore%2BSEO%2Bnews%2B-%2BJuly%2B13%2C%2B2025%2B-%2B18277692=\">some<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/SEO\/comments\/1m47avn\/chatgpt_plus_is_secretly_googlepowered_my_hidden\/\">SEOs<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aleydasolis.com\/en\/ai-search\/chatgpt-uses-google-serp-snippets-for-answers\/\">discovered<\/a> that ChatGPT may have secretly pivoted to using Google instead.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"948\" height=\"570\" class=\"wp-image-190764\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/aleyda-solis-experiment-to-see-if-chatgpt-uses-goo.jpg\" alt=\"Aleyda Solis experiment to see if ChatGPT uses Google\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/aleyda-solis-experiment-to-see-if-chatgpt-uses-goo.jpg 948w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/aleyda-solis-experiment-to-see-if-chatgpt-uses-goo-680x409.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/aleyda-solis-experiment-to-see-if-chatgpt-uses-goo-768x462.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 948px) 100vw, 948px\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>These were all one-off experiments. So, I wondered if it was possible for us to find out the \u2018truth\u2019 using data instead.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what we\u00a0found.<\/p>\n<p>I asked our data scientist <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/author\/xibeijia-guan\/\">Xibeijia Guan<\/a> for help with this. Here\u2019s what she\u00a0did:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>She pulled the actual search queries ChatGPT made (\u201cfan-out queries\u201d) and the URLs it returned from those searches. This data is from our <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/brand-radar\">Ahrefs Brand Radar<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>She then ran those exact same search queries through Google to see what URLs Google would return<\/li>\n<li>She measured how often ChatGPT\u2019s returned URLs appeared in Google\u2019s top 10, top 20, and anywhere in Google\u2019s search results.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1680\" class=\"wp-image-190765\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ahrefs-brand-radar.jpg\" alt=\"Ahrefs Brand Radar\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ahrefs-brand-radar.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ahrefs-brand-radar-518x425.jpg 518w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ahrefs-brand-radar-768x630.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ahrefs-brand-radar-1536x1260.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\"\/><\/noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1680\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-190765\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ahrefs-brand-radar.jpg\" alt=\"Ahrefs Brand Radar\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ahrefs-brand-radar.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ahrefs-brand-radar-518x425.jpg 518w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ahrefs-brand-radar-768x630.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ahrefs-brand-radar-1536x1260.jpg 1536w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>On average, ChatGPT pulls 1.78 search queries per prompt, with 75% of prompts triggering exactly two searches.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewbox=\"0 0 14 14\" style=\"\"><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\"\/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style=\"\"\/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"ChatGPT search results rarely match Google rankings\" data-section=\"chatgpt-rarely-matches-google\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-190763-_ffqoxtgpcjv\"\/>ChatGPT search results rarely match Google rankings<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>On average:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Only <strong>6.82%<\/strong> of ChatGPT search results are in the top 10 of Google\u2019s SERPs<\/li>\n<li>Only<strong> 9.85%<\/strong> of ChatGPT search results are in the top 20 of Google\u2019s SERPs<\/li>\n<li>Only <strong>16.61%<\/strong> of ChatGPT search results are in Google\u2019s SERPs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If ChatGPT were simply pulling from Google\u2019s search results, you\u2019d expect much higher overlap. Instead, <strong>83.39%<\/strong> of ChatGPT\u2019s chosen results don\u2019t appear in Google\u2019s search results at all for the same fan-out queries.<\/p>\n<p>My colleague Louise also studied 15,000 prompts and found that on average, <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/ai-search-overlap\/\">only 12% of links<\/a> cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot appear in Google\u2019s top 10 results for the same prompt.<\/p>\n<p>So, there\u2019s no clear indication that ChatGPT is <em>solely <\/em>or <em>predominantly <\/em>using Google as their search engine.<\/p>\n<p>ChatGPT likely uses a hybrid approach where they retrieve search results from various sources, e.g. Google SERPs, Bing SERPs, their own index, and third-party search APIs, and then combine all the URLs and apply their own re-ranking algorithm.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-190763-_7cj8jx5z2vzg\"\/>Final thoughts<\/h2>\n<p>ChatGPT doesn\u2019t appear to be \u201csecretly Google-powered.\u201d Instead, it seems to use a sophisticated multi-source approach.<\/p>\n<p>This makes sense from a product perspective.<\/p>\n<p>OpenAI likely wants to reduce dependence on any single search provider while optimizing for their specific use case: providing accurate, contextual answers rather than general web discovery.<\/p>\n<p>Any questions or comments? Let me know on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/si-quan-ong\/\">LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <\/span><\/div>\n<p><script>!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\nif(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod?n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments);if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window,document,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');fbq('init','1511271639109289');fbq('track','PageView');<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/is-chatgpt-really-powered-by-google\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Get the week&#8217;s best marketing content Given OpenAI\u2019s close relationship with Microsoft, many expect that ChatGPT\u2019s retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) process would use\u00a0Bing. However, over the past months, some SEOs discovered that ChatGPT may have secretly pivoted to using Google instead. These were all one-off experiments. So, I wondered if it was possible for us to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewebtoolz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}