The term, The Great Decoupling has really been catching on over the past couple of weeks. It is being used to describe what we are seeing with impressions and clicks moving further and further apart since AI Overviews has become more of the norm in the Google Search results.
We spoke about this term Darwin Santos coined it on X and now it has been in tons of SEO presentations, blog posts and social media shares. It describes when clicks and impressions used to be somewhat in line, now you get tons of impressions but no one is clicking anymore.
Heck, even Googlers are using the term or at least showing charts that reference what we are calling that term.
Martin Splitt from Google spoke at the Google Search Central Live 2025 – Warsaw event, which Robert Nowaczyk covered in detail over here. I always like to offer a disclaimer when I cover what others cite Googlers saying at conferences. It is hard enough for me to get it all right when I am in the audience listening, let alone covering someone else's take on what someone said at a conference.
Robert Nowaczyk shared this photo of Martin Splitt explaining The Great Decoupling chart, here it is:
He then said on LinkedIn:
Image from yesterday's Google Search Central Live 2025 (not colored). GSC impressions up, clicks down. The drop in organic traffic is affecting everyone - even Google services.Martin Splitt said: "So, yes, if things are being shown in AI overviews, you will probably see less clicks", there is also a light at the end of the tunnel: "(...) So likely your impressions are going to go up if you are shown in AI overviews or AI mode. Um clicks are likely to stagnate or fall a little bit. (...) But likely this might increase your conversions, which is pretty good, I think."
Martin then came into the comments on LinkedIn and clarified, he said:
Well there was a bit of context lost there.It's similar to what happened with impressions many years ago - you got impressions that lead to nothing (while probably not getting ones that might have lead to something).
We're seeing that clicks might stagnate or go down, but either people convert later in the customer journey, without search involved in the later stage directly (no search click, but still a conversion, despite nearly impossible to attribute to an earlier impression). And the clicks you get through search are more likely to be clicks that convert.
So I then asked:
Martin Splitt how do you know people convert later in the customer journey, without search involved?
Martin responded:
I shouldn't social media when tired. That part is an observation I made myself and something I guess is going to happen, based on a remark someone recently made in a chat I had during an event.
Later on, he added, "I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if the attribution issue is going to get trickier." Yea, well Google Search Console may be able to help with that, but no, Search Console is not.
In any event, my favorite part of the thread is Lukasz Rogala who wrote "This shot looks great in the style of The Simpsons, I hope they will make an episode about it someday" and shared this image:
So this is the first time I've seen a Googler try to explain The Great Decoupling.
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
