TermAs the studio uses it
Grounding Query
The short search an assistant writes for itself to find sources for an answer, after rewriting the question a person asked.
When someone asks Copilot a question, the assistant rewrites it into one or more short searches and reads the pages they return; those searches, not the question typed, decide which pages are read and cited. Bing reports them for a site in Webmaster Tools’ AI Performance report (Bing Webmaster Blog).
Why It Matters
It explains why the shape of a query does not reveal AI demand. On a firm’s site the studio read, 85 % of Copilot’s citations came on searches of one to three words: the questions themselves never appear in any report. A firm that sizes its AI exposure by counting long, conversational searches will find almost none, and be wrong.
How the Studio Uses It
The grounding queries are read beside the site’s own search data. Most of them are searches the site already appears for in Google; the ones it does not appear for make the AI-only list, the clearest map of where the firm already has authority that search has not yet recognised. The method: The Page the Machine Quotes.
Asked About
Grounding Query.
Can I see my grounding queries?
Yes, as a sample, in Bing Webmaster Tools’ AI Performance report.
Should I write pages for long questions?
No. The assistant searches in short terms; write the plain page those terms find.
Where the Studio
Uses It.
Every Engine Keeps Its Own Record
Two years of one reference network, read from its own accounts: what Google, Bing and the AI answers each did with the same pages, and what it means for any firm that wants to be found.05 · Advisory · Search · · 14 min readThe Page the Machine Quotes
How an AI answer chooses the page it cites, what the studio’s own measurements show on three kinds of site, and how a page earns the quote.03 · Advisory · Alignment · · 12 min read