People also ask
In practice
Decay is the default trajectory of untreated content: the page was accurate when written, the market moved, competitors refreshed, and the page slides — slowly enough that nobody notices quarter to quarter. Detection is trend-based, not snapshot-based: pages whose clicks and impressions have declined over six-plus months in Search Console, grouped by topic, form the decay report. The decision tree afterwards matters more than the detection.
Refresh when the topic is evergreen and the page has history worth keeping: update the facts, the screenshots, the comparison tables, the year in the title — a meaningful refresh re-earns rankings because the underlying page retains its links and authority. Consolidate when several decaying pages cover one topic: merge the best into one comprehensive page, absorb the rest with redirects. Delete when the page is time-bound (an event, a dead product) and nothing links to it worth keeping — removing junk improves the site’s average quality and crawl focus. The link building connection runs both directions.
Decaying pages drag the value of links pointing at them — a placement into a page nobody maintains is a placement with a shelf life, which is why publishers’ freshness is part of site qualification. And refreshed pages are link targets: an updated, genuinely better resource justifies re-outreach to everyone who linked to similar content, and gives existing linkers a reason their link keeps working. A programme that acquires links without maintaining the receiving pages is filling a leaking bucket.
See also: Content refresh and link re-acquisition, Link rot and link churn, Broken link building.
Related service: Guest posts.
