Content Decay Lite

Content decay finder (lite)

Shows which pages lost the most clicks between two periods, so refresh work starts where the traffic went.

When to use

• "Which pages are losing traffic?", "what content should I refresh?", "my organic clicks dropped, where?"
• The user has two GSC Performance → Pages exports (for example the last 3 months and the 3 months before, or year over year).

How to run

1. Export two CSVs with columns page, clicks, impressions, position (CTR optional). Use equal-length periods; year over year avoids seasonality.
2. Run:

   python3 scripts/decay.py previous.csv current.csv
   python3 scripts/decay.py previous.csv current.csv --top 50
   

3. Present the table. For the top 5 DECLINING pages, suggest checking: the position change (ranking loss) vs a flat position with fewer clicks (CTR or demand loss), the date of the last update, and the top queries that page lost in GSC.

Labels

• LOST: had clicks before, none now (deleted, redirected, de-indexed or dropped out).
• DECLINING: clicks down 30% or more.
• STRIKING_DISTANCE: average position 8–20 with 100+ impressions (a cheap win).
• GROWING: clicks up 20% or more.
• STABLE: everything else.

Limits

Page-level only. It does not split ranking loss from CTR loss, look at queries, or write refresh briefs.

Example

/seo-guide 800 → 420 clicks, position 4.2 → 6.1 → DECLINING, −380 clicks, first in the list.

Want root-cause triage and a refresh plan?

• Paid skill that separates RANK_SLIP, CTR_DROP and DECAYING pages and writes refresh briefs: Find Decaying Pages: GSC Triage + Content Refresh Plan on Agensi
• Hosted version: Content Decay Audit on Apify
• Free MCP server: cygnix-seo-mcp