Content decay: how to find pages losing traffic and what to do with each

Content decay is the gradual loss of organic clicks on a page that used to perform, usually because competitors published something better, the information aged, or the results page changed. To find it, compare each page's clicks with an earlier period in Search Console and look for meaningful pages that lost a large share. Then diagnose each one before acting: a page losing demand needs nothing, a page losing rankings needs a refresh, and a page losing clicks at the same ranking needs a better snippet.

Finding decaying pages#

1. 1

   Choose the comparison

   Last 3 months against the previous 3 months. For seasonal sites, last 3 months against the same 3 months a year earlier.

2. 2

   Pages tab, sorted by click difference

   The biggest absolute losses are at the top.

3. 3

   Set a threshold

   Ignore pages that had few clicks to begin with. A useful starting rule is pages that had at least 40 clicks a month and lost at least 20% of them.

4. 4

   Export the list

   Keep the URL, clicks before and after, position before and after, and impressions before and after.

Diagnose before you refresh#

These thresholds are the ones AnotherSEOGuru App's decay detector uses to label a page's likely cause. They are a starting point; tune them to your site.

Refresh, merge, redirect or leave it#

A refresh checklist that actually moves rankings#

• Search the page's main query and read the current top three. Write down what they cover that you do not.
• Rewrite the opening so the answer comes in the first paragraph.
• Replace outdated facts, screenshots, prices and examples. Remove what is no longer true.
• Add what is missing: a step, a table, an example, a FAQ answering the questions in “People also ask”.
• Check the title and description against the queries the page gets impressions for today, not the ones it was written for.
• Add internal links to it from newer related pages, with descriptive anchors.
• Update the visible “last updated” date only if the content really changed.

Measure every refresh#

Note the date you shipped. After four weeks, compare the page's clicks over the same number of days before and after, leaving the ship day out. Compare against the rest of the site over the same days so a sitewide rise or seasonal swing is not credited to your refresh. That is how AnotherSEOGuru App measures shipped tasks, and it works just as well in a spreadsheet.

How often to check#

Monthly for sites that publish regularly, quarterly for smaller sites. Decay is slow, so a weekly check mostly shows noise. Put the review in the same meeting as your Search Console analysis, and if a drop is sudden and sitewide, use the traffic drop diagnosis instead.