Detecting content decay
Find pages where search traffic has dropped compared to their historical peak and get AI-powered recommendations for recovery.
Find pages where search traffic has dropped compared to their historical peak and get AI-powered recommendations for recovery.
Content decay happens when a page that once performed well in search gradually loses traffic over time. The Content decay tab helps you identify these pages early so you can take action before the decline becomes severe.
Connect Google Search Console and allow enough history to sync before using this view. Rankability requires at least 90 days of GSC history and a meaningful traffic peak; the interface currently describes the minimum as 50 clicks per month for an eligible page. Seasonal, migrated, redirected, or newly consolidated URLs need human review before they are labeled as content problems.
How decay is measured
Rankability compares each page’s current 30-day click total to its historical peak (the highest 30-day rolling click total the page has ever achieved). The ratio between current and peak clicks produces a decay score:
Healthy (score above 0.7) – The page is performing within 70% or more of its peak. No immediate action needed.
Decaying (score 0.4 to 0.7) – The page has lost a meaningful share of its peak traffic. Review the content for freshness and relevance.
Critical (score below 0.4) – The page has lost more than 60% of its peak traffic. Urgent attention recommended.
Only pages with at least 90 days of history and a meaningful peak traffic level are included.
Thresholds are triage rules, not diagnoses. A page can be below its historical peak because demand changed, the URL moved, the query mix shifted, SERP features changed, or another page became the intended target.
Table view
The default view shows a table of pages sorted by decay score (worst first). Each row displays:
Page URL – The affected page (shown as a path without the domain).
Peak clicks (30d) – The highest 30-day click total ever recorded.
Current clicks (30d) – The most recent 30-day click total.
Decay score – The ratio displayed as a colored badge (green for healthy, amber for decaying, red for critical).
Heatmap view
Click Heatmap to switch to a visual grid showing monthly click performance for each page. Each cell is color-coded by how close that month’s clicks are to the page’s peak month:
Darker blue cells indicate months closer to peak performance.
Lighter cells indicate months with lower traffic.
The heatmap makes it easy to spot seasonal patterns and pinpoint exactly when a decline started.
Filtering by status
Use the status filter to show only healthy, decaying, or critical pages. This is useful when you want to focus on the most urgent issues first.
AI-powered diagnosis
Click the Diagnose button on any page row to get an AI analysis of why the page may be losing traffic. The diagnosis considers:
Monthly traffic trends for the page.
The page’s top search queries and how they’ve changed.
Whether other pages on your site are competing for the same keywords (cannibalization).
The AI returns a summary of likely causes and specific recommended actions you can take to recover lost traffic.
Treat the diagnosis as a hypothesis grounded in the available GSC trends and query evidence. Verify the live URL, indexability, recent changes, competing pages, and current search results before editing or redirecting content.
Recovery workflow
Filter to Decaying & critical and set a minimum peak that matches the site's scale.
Open the worst page and check when the decline began in the table or heatmap.
Review query and page evidence, then run diagnosis when it can add useful context.
Confirm that the URL is live and still the intended canonical page.
Choose the smallest justified action: refresh content, correct intent, consolidate competing pages, fix a technical issue, or monitor a seasonal decline.
Add a GSC annotation for a material change and measure the following weeks against the correct baseline.
Common issues
Zero pages analyzed — Confirm 90 days of synced GSC history and at least 50 monthly clicks on eligible pages.
Analysis is still computing — Leave it running and return later; do not reconnect GSC to force a duplicate calculation.
A known page is absent — It may not meet the history or peak threshold, or the connected property may not include it.
The decline is seasonal — Use the heatmap and year-over-year context before rewriting the page.
Diagnosis is unavailable — Use the stored trend and query evidence manually, then see Troubleshooting common issues if the state persists.
Related articles
Connecting and using Google Search Console — Set up the GSC integration.
Finding low-hanging fruit opportunities — Discover quick-win keywords to improve.
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