Content decay is the slow loss of search traffic on a page that once earned steady clicks, usually because its rankings slipped, fewer people click its result, or fewer people search for its topic. It often happens without any obvious technical fault. The free content decay tool connects to your site's search performance data, reads 13 months of clicks, impressions and positions for every page, and lists the pages that have lost traffic, with the likely cause for each one.
How to use the content decay tool
- Connect Google Search Console. The connection is read-only and lasts about an hour. The tool does not store your data and never sends it to AI models.
- Let the tool read 13 months of clicks, impressions and positions for every page. It compares each page's best three months in a row with its last 28 days.
- Read the result for each decaying page. The tool gives one cause for each page: lost rankings, fewer clicks per view, or less search demand. Each cause comes with its own fix. For the biggest losses, it also lists the searches the page lost since its peak.
- Export the results to CSV if you want to work through them in a spreadsheet.
The tool works from your real Search Console clicks, not estimates. That matters because a page can look weak in a third-party estimate while its real clicks are holding up.
What is content decay?
Content decay means a page's organic results slide steadily after a stretch of strong performance. A single bad week is not decay. A decaying page keeps losing ground over months, measured against its own earlier results rather than against other pages on the site.
The decline is usually visible in the numbers first. Clicks fall, and impressions or average position move with them. Because the page itself has not changed, many site owners do not notice until the loss is large.
What causes content decay?
Most decay comes from one of four causes:
- Outdated information. Prices, dates, rules or product details in the page no longer match what is true today.
- Changing search intent. Searchers now want a different kind of page, such as a comparison or a step-by-step guide, rather than the explanation your page gives.
- Stronger competitors. Other pages now answer the same question more fully or more recently.
- Broken or accidental changes. Broken links, or a site update that quietly adds a noindex tag, can make a page look as if it is decaying.
The tool sorts each decaying page into one of three measured causes. Each one shows up differently in Search Console:
- Lost rankings: average position has got worse and impressions have fallen.
- Fewer clicks per view: position has held but click-through rate has dropped, often because an AI Overview now sits above the organic results.
- Fewer searches: position and click-through rate have held but impressions have fallen, which means fewer people are searching for the topic.
An SEO agency's study of informational queries (published November 2025) also found that queries without an AI Overview lost 41% of their click-through rate year over year, comparing September 2025 with September 2024. Part of the fall is therefore not caused by AI Overviews alone.
How to find content decay in Google Search Console
Google Search Console is the free source for this job. Search Console records clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position for each page and query. Compare the last six months with the six months before them, or compare a 90-day window with the same window a year earlier, to see which pages are losing traffic. Search Console keeps 16 months of history, enough to make a year-over-year comparison.
Pew Research Center's analysis of browsing data (July 2025) found that users clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, against about 15% of visits without one. That is the scale of the click loss that a decaying page may be facing. Pew Research Center's analysis gives the full figures.
An SEO software company's large keyword study reported that "the presence of an AI Overview now correlates with a 58% lower average clickthrough rate". The word to notice is correlates. In the company's study, the figure links AI Overviews to lower clicks; it does not prove each one caused the loss on your site.
Before you trust a drop in impressions, check Google's data notes. Google's Search Console help page on data anomalies says impressions were logged inaccurately for a period ending April 27, 2026, and that clicks were not affected. If your impressions fell in that window, the drop may be a reporting problem rather than decay.
My view is that Google Search Console is the place to start, because it is free and holds the click and position history you need to prove a decline. I would only add a paid tool when the job needs backlink research or live change monitoring, and I would check the impression dates before trusting any drop. More free checks are on our free SEO tools page.
Which numbers show the cause?
Start with the four Search Console numbers: clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position. Read them together. Falling position with falling impressions points to lost rankings, and steady position with falling click-through rate points to fewer clicks per view. Steady position and click-through rate with falling impressions point to fewer searches for the topic.
Does your page's format still match what ranks?
Open the pages that rank for your keyword and note their format: a comparison, a checklist, a tool, a short definition or a long guide. If the pages that now rank offer a format your page does not, the format may be the cause of the decline, even when the facts are still correct.
How do I identify content decay on my site?
Use the tool above first, then check by hand in Search Console if you want to confirm a result. In the Performance report, filter by page, compare two periods, and look for pages where clicks have fallen sharply. The report shows clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position for each page and query. Before you conclude that a page has decayed, use the URL Inspection tool to rule out an indexing problem.
The tool flags a page as decaying when its last 28 days earn under 70 percent of its peak, the decline holds across the latest three months, and the click loss is meaningful. The tool leaves out seasonal pages, meaning pages that earn about what they did at the same time last year.
How do you fix content decay?
Find the cause first, then fix that cause. If rankings have dropped, update the facts and make the page a better answer than the pages now ranking above it. If clicks per view have dropped, rewrite the title and description so the result earns the click, and add material an AI summary cannot give, such as your own measured data. If searches for the topic have dropped, decide whether the topic still matters to your business before you spend time on it. When several of your URLs trade positions for the same query, merge them into one page.
Refresh, rewrite, merge, redirect or leave alone?
Pick a refresh when you find dated facts and the format still suits the search. Rewrite it when the search intent has changed. Merge it when two pages compete for the same query. Redirect it when the page has moved, because a page that only moved is not decay. Leave it alone when the decline is seasonal, since the tool treats seasonal pages as not decaying.
How to measure a refresh
After a refresh, measure the result against a baseline taken before the change. Most teams measure the effect of a refresh over a window of four to twelve weeks, depending on how often search engines crawl the page, how much competition it faces and how deep the update was. Record clicks, impressions, average position and click-through rate for the same period each time.
Deleted pages and site-wide drops
The tool reports a deleted page as removed and advises you to restore it or redirect it. A page that was redirected is counted together with its new address, and pages that only moved are listed separately. A noindex tag, or a site update that changes how the server responds to each page, can also make a healthy page look like severe decay. If many pages fell together, check for a site-wide cause such as a migration or a Google update before you refresh each page.
How do AI Overviews reduce clicks?
AI Overviews now appear above organic results on informational searches, and the click data shows the effect. An SEO agency's study found that organic click-through rate on queries that show an AI Overview fell from 1.76% in June 2024 to 0.61% in September 2025. The same study said the decline appeared to level off around 0.6% by summer 2025. Plan for fewer clicks on informational queries, and put your effort into the pages that still earn them. Work through your decaying pages in order of the clicks each has lost and how much each matters to your business.
Pages that are gaining traffic
The tool lists the pages gaining traffic as well. Those are good pages to link from when you want to pass attention to a page that is losing clicks, because the link helps readers reach the decaying page from a page that is performing.
Is the content decay tool free?
Yes. The content decay tool on this page is free, and it works from your own Google Search Console data. Search Console itself is also free, so you can check for decay by hand at no cost, although the tool does the comparison work for every page at once. Results export to CSV, so you can keep a record of each check.
Why does content decay matter?
Content decay lowers organic traffic and the leads that traffic can produce. Checking for it on a schedule catches the loss early.
When important pages lose rankings, the site as a whole gets fewer visits from search, and fewer visits mean fewer chances to turn readers into leads. Decay also builds quietly, so a page can lose a large share of its traffic before anyone acts.
