Content Refresh and Decay Detection
Finds pages losing clicks or position, orders the refresh work by the traffic at risk, and puts each one in the backlog with an owner.
Tools
Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Semrush, Contentful, Amplitude
Outcomes
Decay caught in weeks, not quarters • Refresh order set by traffic at risk • Every refresh has an owner and a date • The result of each refresh recorded
Documentation
Instruction-ready detail below
What breaks
A page that ranked well two years ago keeps losing clicks for months while the site total still looks fine, so nobody acts. When someone finally does, the fix is usually a full rewrite of whatever was remembered, which costs a week and moves nothing.
What the workflow does
- Compare each page's clicks and position against its own recent history, not against a site average.
- Rank the falling pages by the traffic they were getting, so the list is ordered by value.
- Check the backlinks first: a page that still holds strong links is usually worth a smaller fix.
- Put the agreed refresh in the backlog with an owner, a date, and the reason it was chosen.
- Record the before and after numbers, so the next round of decay is judged against what refreshes actually returned.
What a human still approves
The content lead decides what gets rewritten and how far the change goes. Keeping a page or retiring it is a call about the business, not a number from a tool.