What content decay is and how this checker finds it
Content decay is the slow loss of search traffic that most pages suffer as they age: competitors publish fresher answers, search results change, or interest in a topic fades. Because it happens gradually, it rarely triggers an alarm — you notice it months later as a flat traffic chart. This content decay checker finds it early by comparing a recent period against the one before it, page by page.
For each page that lost at least the drop you set (20% by default) and had a meaningful number of clicks before (10 by default), it shows clicks, impressions and average position for both periods and classifies the most likely cause. That classification is what makes the list actionable, because the fix for a page that slipped from position 4 to 9 is different from the fix for a page that still ranks 4 but is being clicked less.
The four causes the checker distinguishes
- Lost rankings — average position worsened by a full place or more. Refresh and expand the content, and check what now ranks above you.
- Lost clicks at a stable position — you rank where you did but are clicked less, usually because of a new SERP feature or a weaker title next to competitors. Rewrite the title and meta description.
- Fewer searches — impressions fell while position held, which points to lower demand or seasonality rather than a page problem. Check the same months a year earlier before acting.
- Stopped getting clicks — a page that had clicks now has none. Check status codes, redirects, noindex tags and your sitemap.
How to get your Search Console export
Open the Performance report for your property, pick the date range you want, then use Export at the top right and choose Download CSV. Search Console gives you a ZIP that holds one CSV per table — Queries, Pages, Countries, Devices and so on — and you can drop the ZIP straight onto the tool; it finds the tables it needs and ignores the rest.
Exports follow the language of your Search Console interface. The tool recognises the column names in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Polish exports, and tells you if it cannot find the columns it needs.
Limits of a two-period comparison
Comparing two periods cannot tell a genuine decline from seasonality on its own, so read “Fewer searches” results together with last year’s figures. Averages also hide detail: a page ranking for hundreds of queries can lose its top query while the average position barely moves. Treat the list as a prioritised set of pages to look at, not a verdict.
How to use it
- Export the Pages table for the recent period (for example the last 3 months) and again for the period before it — or use one “compare dates” export that contains both.
- Drop the current-period file on the left box and the previous-period file on the right.
- Adjust the minimum previous clicks and the minimum drop if the list is too long or too short.
- Open a row for the likely cause and what to do, then export the list to CSV.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find content decay in Search Console?
Compare the same length of time before and after in the Performance report and look at clicks per page. This tool automates that: upload both periods and it lists the pages that lost clicks, biggest loss first, with the likely cause.
What period should I compare?
Three months against the three months before is a good default: long enough to smooth out weekly noise, short enough to catch a decline while it is fixable. For seasonal topics compare against the same months a year earlier instead.
What is a normal amount of decay?
Most pages lose some clicks over time, so small drops are noise. That is why the default only flags pages that lost at least 20% of a meaningful click count.
Can it tell me why a page lost traffic?
It gives the most likely category from the position, impressions and click data, not a certainty. Confirm by searching the query yourself and checking the page for technical changes.
Is my Search Console data uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read and analysed entirely in your browser and is never sent to a server. There is no login, and the only thing the site records is an anonymous count that a file was analysed.
Causes are inferred from Search Console averages and are suggestions to investigate, not diagnoses.