The Great Decoupling: How AI Overviews are Changing the Game for the SEO Industry

Google’s AI Overviews have become a real challenge for the SEO industry due to a phenomenon that Darwin Santos called “The Great Decoupling.” All e-commerce websites felt it, whose traffic dropped despite high SERP positions and increased impressions. 

AI Overviews broke the usual SEO practices that contributed to the increase in clicks by promoting websites in SERPs. Such zero-click SEO requires a closer look at the customer journey in this new situation. Whoever finds a solution for business growth in the conditions of AI dominance will open a new chapter in the development of SEO practices.

The Great Decoupling: The Heart of the Problem

The essence of SEO website promotion in SERPs was easy to explain even to those site owners who were just starting their e-commerce business. Until recently, traffic growth correlated well with the website’s position in SERPs. The higher the site is in the search results, the higher the number of impressions and, therefore, the number of clicks. SEO campaign algorithms were well-developed, and their effectiveness was convincing for businesses.

Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode have broken this well-oiled mechanism. Now, searchers don’t need to go to websites to get key information on their queries. As a result, SEO specialists began to see the following frightening picture in Google Search Console (GSC):

• The number of impressions increased, especially for websites with a high reputation.
• The number of clicks decreased significantly, which led to a drop in organic traffic.

Even for authoritative SEO services like Ahrefs, the correlation between impressions and clicks fell from 0.425 to -0.352. On GSС charts, these changes look very noticeable. Before the introduction of AI Overviews, the fluctuations in impressions and clicks were synchronized. But now, their fluctuation trajectories diverge radically. SEO specialists have already nicknamed these new patterns “crocodile mouths.” However, the interesting point is that this problem primarily affected websites with a high reputation.

AI Overviews and Website Reputation Paradoxes

The algorithm for counting impressions has changed after Google implemented AI Overviews. Now, GSС takes into account two types of impressions:

• Traditional impressions through SERP results.
• Citations using a keyword in an AI Overview.

So far, Google’s AI does not offer users unique content; instead, it compiles an overview from excerpts from different websites. The chances of getting into the citation are high, first of all, for those websites that have a high reputation with Google search engines. Mentions in AI Overviews depend on the website’s position in SERPs, as evidenced by the research data. Sites shown in the first 12 positions are cited in 3/4 of the queries. So, they are the ones who felt the problem of the great decoupling most acutely.

At the same time, websites that are not cited or rarely cited in AI Overviews do not show this “crocodile mouth” pattern in their GSC reports. This was well noted by Patrick Stox, who analyzed the impact of mentions in AI Overviews on the correlation between impressions and clicks. This does not mean that websites with lower reputations benefit in this situation. The decline in clicks and website traffic with the implementation of Google’s AI tools has become a widespread problem. However, this fact demonstrates the decisive role of AIOs in the emergence of such a decoupling pattern.

From Challenge to Opportunity: How AI Overview Impacts Customer Journey

Today, we can definitely state that AI Overviews and AI Mode drag clicks down while simultaneously increasing the number of impressions. But does this mean the situation is hopeless and e-commerce will lose effective tools for attracting consumers through promotion in SERPs? Ahrefs’ experience shows that where one door closes, another opens. Visits through AI search convert much better than clicks on links from traditional SERP results. Based on Patrick Stox’s data, the figures are impressive: in the first case, conversion rates are 23 times higher.

Thus, users’ trust in Google’s AI tools has worked in favor of businesses with a high reputation. This softens the blow to traditional SEO practices but does not effectively solve the problem. Finding new ways to attract visitors to sites with the implementation of AI Overviews is one of the top priorities for the SEO industry.

The Bottom Line

The great decoupling of impressions and clicks is undoubtedly a serious challenge for SEO professionals and site owners. However, we should not expect it to be the only one in the era of active introduction of AI technologies. The SEO industry will certainly come up with an effective solution for integrating AI Overviews into their website promotion strategies. However, it must be prepared for major changes in its practices and tools since the next steps of AI will continue to test its ingenuity.