About the Content Decay Checker
Content decay is the gradual loss of search traffic as pages age, competitors publish better answers, or search intent shifts. This content decay checker reads a Google Search Console Pages export made with the compare-periods option and ranks pages by the clicks they lost, with impressions and percentage changes alongside.
Ranking by absolute loss puts the pages that cost you the most traffic first, rather than small pages with dramatic percentages. For each decaying page, check whether rankings fell or demand dropped, compare it with what now ranks, then refresh facts, examples and structure, or merge it with a related page. Compare equal periods, ideally year on year for seasonal topics. The export is analyzed in your browser and never uploaded.
How to use it
- In Search Console, open Performance, choose Compare and pick two equal periods.
- Open the Pages tab and export it as CSV.
- Load the file and sort by click loss.
- Investigate the top pages and plan refreshes or merges.
Frequently asked questions
What causes content decay?
Common causes include outdated information, newer and better competing pages, changes in search intent, new search features taking clicks, seasonal demand changes and technical issues on the page. Checking queries for the affected page in Search Console usually shows which one applies.
Which periods should I compare?
Compare periods of equal length. Year-on-year comparisons, such as the last three months against the same three months last year, help separate decay from seasonality. Shorter comparisons can be useful after a known event, such as a site migration or core update.
Should I delete decaying content?
Not automatically. First see if updating or expanding the page can recover it. If a page has no traffic, links or business value and overlaps with another page, merging it and redirecting the URL is usually better than deleting it outright.