The Great Decoupling: Why Zero-Click Searches Are on the Rise

If you’ve been tracking your site’s clicks since before Google’s AI Overviews rolled out, you’re probably used to seeing impressions and clicks fluctuate in a similar manner.

But now, impression lines are trending up—and click rates are going down.

This trend is called the great decoupling, and there’s a reason it’s happening right now.

What is the Great Decoupling?

The great decoupling refers to an increase in impressions and a simultaneous decrease in clicks from organic search engine results pages (SERPs).

Why is the Great Decoupling Happening?

The widening gap between impressions and clicks is directly related to the rollout of AI Overviews and now AI Mode.

Yes, these new SERP features give you more ways to appear in a result—but the generative nature of AI search makes it less likely that a searcher will click on a website that’s cited by AI.

Users feel like they’re getting the information they need from the AI Overview, even if it’s wrong.

In fact, our recent report on the AI trust gap found that only 18.6% of Google users “always or usually” click on source links in the AI Overview.

Does the Great Decoupling Mean That SEO is Dead?

No, the great decoupling does not mean that search engine optimization (SEO) is dead. SEO is at an evolution point—and it’s not the first time that SERPs and search behavior has changed.

The whole issue behind the great decoupling isn’t even new. When someone runs a Google search and doesn’t click on any links, it’s called a zero-click search, and it’s been happening since at least January 2014, when Google introduced featured snippets.

Zero-click searches do have some SEO value, and they can bring your brand awareness up over time. But because AI Overviews are rapidly increasing zero-click searches beyond anything we’ve seen before, we can’t dismiss them as a nuisance or an occasional quirk in our metrics.

How to Tell if You’re Affected

The first step in tackling the great decoupling is to figure out if you’re affected.

And it’s almost guaranteed that you are.

You can use Google Search Console to figure out how badly the great decoupling is driving down your click rate. It’s a simple process:

1. Log in to Google Search Console.
2. Click on Performance.
3. Set the time filter to “16 months,” as this will make it easy to compare pre- and post-AI SERPs.
4. The blue line on the graph you see equals clicks; the purple line is impressions. If the two are diverging, with the purple line trending upward, you're affected.

If the difference between your clicks and impression lines is small, you may just be seeing a normal fluctuation that could happen in any SERP environment.

But if the gap between the two metrics is widening—by hundreds or thousands—then it’s time for you to re-evaluate how you optimize for and track organic search.

Rethinking SEO for AI Search and Zero-Click Marketing

Optimizing for AI search goes by a few different names—SEO for AI, generative engine optimization (GEO), and answer engine optimization (AEO) are just a few.

Regardless of what you like to call it, though, there are a few key things that marketers need to focus on to maximize the benefit of AI-driven zero-click search.

Understand How Your Audience Feels About AI Overviews

First, figure out how your audience feels about AI Overviews. Read existing research on how different audiences feel about AI Overviews and draw parallels between these groups and your own customers.

For example, our AI trust gap report indicated that:

• People aged 30-44 are most likely to trust AI Overviews
• People aged 18-29 are most skeptical about AI
• 20% of people aged 60 and up are “not at all” concerned about AI’s impact on the environment
• Women are more likely to express a desire for less AI-generated content than men are
• Out of people located in the U.S., Mid-Atlantic region residents are most receptive to AI-generated content, while West North Central respondents are least receptive
• 41.2% of people with a household income of $200,000 or more “always” or “usually” click the sources provided in an AI Overview

Figure Out Which Keywords Contribute to Your Great Divide

Rather than taking a blanket approach to the great divide and changing your strategy for every search term, figure out which keywords are the biggest culprits for zero-click searches.

To do this, run your website through your SEO software of choice—I like to use the Semrush Domain Overview tool.

Next, open the complete list of keywords for which your website appears on the SERP. Filter the results to only show the terms for which your website appears in the AI Overview.

Look at the URL column to see which pages are associated with the AI Overview for a given keyword. These are the pages that are potentially leading to zero-click searches.

Now that you have this information, you can decide whether you want to:

• Set up position tracking for ChatGPT and AI Mode to assess if other AI search results are potentially driving zero-click searches, too
• Update the listed pages to potentially funnel different or better information into the AI Overview
• Start tracking new metrics for these terms (such as AI share of voice) in addition to share of search, impressions, and click-throughs
• Focus on promoting the affected content, products, and services on social media platforms or other channels where your audience may look for information

Set Up Rank Tracking for AI Mode and ChatGPT

You can also use Semrush to set up designated rank trackers to monitor your position in AI Mode and ChatGPT. I like to do this in tandem with my traditional SERP position tracking, as it gives me a better idea of:

• Where my audience is searching
• Which topics are more likely to be searched for via AI search engines
• Other terms that may be contributing to zero-click search numbers and driving down website clicks

Position tracking in ChatGPT and AI Mode is simple: just create a new tracking campaign in Semrush and choose either “ChatGPT” or “Google AI Mode” as your search engine of choice.

(Don’t worry, you can set up more than one position tracking report for a domain—I usually set up four: one each for ChatGPT, AI Mode, Google, and Bing.)

Specify your location and add any keywords you’d like to track. In this case, I recommend starting with a selection of terms for which you appear in the AI Overview.

Restructure Your Content for AI Overview Citation Accuracy

If you find that your webpages are appearing in the AI Overview, then you’re already on the right track in terms of AI SERP feature optimization.

I recommend doing a spot check on several keywords, though, and ask yourself the following:

• Are the pages cited by the AI Overview relevant to the topic?
• Is valuable information being picked up by the AI?
• Are you cited toward the top of the AI Overview, or the bottom?

If you don’t like what you’re seeing in the AI Overview—or you aren’t appearing in many AI Overviews at all (because annoying as zero-click searches may be, this is the future of the Google SERP) then you’ll want to:

• Audit your existing content, including landing pages, to make sure that it contains clear, relevant subheadings.
• Use bullet points and tables to make your content more easily consumable by people and AI search engines.
• Evaluate if you’re publishing the right type of content to meet search intent.
• Edit long-form content like blog posts so that the most valuable, informational part of each section appears directly beneath the subhead or as close as possible.
• Make sure your content includes relevant semantic keywords (I use the Semrush SEO Writing Assistant for this task).
• Provide clear answers to questions related to the target keyword—you can find these by examining the People Also Ask SERP feature, via the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool, or by using a tool like AlsoAsked.
• Include eye-catching images and infographics whenever possible, as this can give you yet another way to appear in an AI search result and drive traffic to your website.

Explore New Reporting Metrics

Finally, look at new ways of tracking and quantifying the success of your content marketing efforts.

Yes, it can feel like a gut punch when you see the metrics you’ve relied on for years—namely clicks and organic website traffic—falling. But as our AI study showed, people are still clicking on AI Overview links.

You might have fewer clicks, but they’re potentially going to be higher quality with better conversion rates in the long run.

That said, marketers still need a way to measure the impact of their work. Try looking at:

• Market share: Are your conversions up? Are you capturing more sales than a competitor?
• AI share of voice: Are you cited more than competitors in the AI Overview, AI Mode, or by ChatGPT? This can bring your brand awareness and market share up over time.
• Multi-SERP rank: Does your content appear in the traditional SERP, AI Overview, AI Mode, and ChatGPT? If your position is high across each form of search, you’re creating valuable content and people will find you…even if that process looks a little different than it used to.
• Traffic source: Are you seeing more clicks from sources not reflected in Google Search Console, like ChatGPT or Perplexity? AI search engine use is expected to exceed Google search in the coming years; start tracking this traffic now.

Tools to Help You Master Zero-Click SEO and AI Search

As you work through this process, you might find that you need to adjust your existing marketing and attribution tech stack.

I’m currently using the following tools to help me better plan and optimize content for my clients:

• Google Search Console for monitoring changes in traffic from traditional SERPs
• Semrush to research rank and traffic across AI search engines, find new keywords, and cluster content by topic
• Screaming Frog to quickly analyze content length, complexity, and organization
• Otterly.ai to evaluate how different large language models (LLMs) present information about a brand—and its competitors
• The Semrush SEO Writing Assistant extension for Google Workspace to score semantic keyword use and edit content
• Exploding Topics to identify which channels I should focus on when targeting a particular topic or entity—there’s no use stressing about the AI Overview for a specific keyword when the related topic is most popular on LinkedIn or Reddit

Rethink Your Marketing Strategy with Semrush and Exploding Topics

If you can only pick one search monitoring tool to help you better understand and overcome the great decoupling, I recommend Semrush. The company is regularly on top of advances in AI SEO, and I find their LLM search engine position tracking tools to be very easy to use.

You can get an extended free trial of Semrush with our exclusive coupon code—and while you’re at it, add on a free seven-day trial of Exploding Topics Pro, too. Access to these two tools will help you see what zero-click searches mean for your marketing, and where you can best redirect your efforts.