The gradual decline in traffic and rankings as content becomes outdated or outcompeted.
Content decay is the natural performance drop over time due to changing user needs, fresher competitors, or evolving SERPs. Identifying decay and refreshing content—through updates, expansions, or consolidation—helps recover visibility and maintain topical authority.
| Criteria | Recommended | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Intent Alignment | Map $content decay to user journeys and topics | Validate with SERP and on-site behavior |
| Consistency | Encode in components and content standards | Use CMS validations and preview QA |
| Measurement | Track internal CTR, sync signals, conversions | Set guardrails to catch regressions |
A tutorial losing traffic as software versions change
A statistics post outdated by a new year of data
Restores lost visibility and conversions
Keeps resources relevant and trusted
Improves overall site quality signals
Monitor performance cohorts for declines
Refresh or consolidate decaying pages
Schedule regular audits for key topics
The perceived expertise and depth a site has on a specific subject area.
The incremental value a page adds beyond what is already available on the web.
How recently and meaningfully content has been updated to remain accurate and useful.
The mix of anchor text types used across a site’s internal and external links.
Grouping content by meaning using embeddings to form coherent topic clusters.
Links tagged to signal that they should not pass ranking signals to the target page.
The underlying goal or purpose behind a user's search query.
RankVectors uses AI-powered semantic analysis to help you implement intelligent internal linking strategies automatically.
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