Reoptimize solutions
Content Decay Tool for Checking and Analyzing Decay
A content decay tool finds the published pages with declining visibility: it compares each URL's clicks and positions with an earlier period, ranks the losers by traffic at stake, and shows why each one slipped. Reoptimize checks 100 to 5,000 pages from Search Console and writes a rewrite plan for every page it flags, from $49 a month billed yearly.
Content decay is the gradual decline of a published page's rankings and organic traffic over time, caused by fresher competitors, shifting search intent, and stale information. A content decay tool finds which of your pages are declining, quantifies the traffic at stake, and tells you which fixes reverse it.
Read-only. No CMS access. Plans from $49/mo.
Analyze a page you already published
Read-only. No CMS access needed.
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, prioritized
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The measured finding and the exact fix for this item open in your account.
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Measured on your live page just now. No tool can guarantee rankings.
Sample plan: we could not reach your page from here, so this shows the shape of a Reoptimize rewrite plan, not an audit of this page.
How Reoptimize detects decay
Import your pages or a sitemap and Reoptimize profiles each URL against the current top-ranking pages for its target keyword. Decay shows up as a fingerprint: the page's coverage no longer matches what ranks (missing entities and subtopics), its title reads a generation older than the SERP, its facts date themselves, and its internal links thinned out as your site grew around it. Each page gets an optimization score and an estimate of traffic at stake, so the queue sorts itself: fix the 5 percent of pages holding 80 percent of the recoverable traffic.
From there, each page flows into the content refresh tool for a concrete rewrite plan.
The numbers behind decay
Decay is the default state of published content, not an exception. Industry studies consistently find that pages lose 10 to 40 percent of their organic traffic per year without maintenance, and that the median top-10 result is over two years old: rankings go to maintained pages, not merely to new ones. A 500-page blog that ignores decay is silently giving back traffic it already earned. If your analytics show a slide, our diagnosis guide to recovering lost SEO traffic walks the causes in order of likelihood.
What you get for every decaying page
- An optimization score against the live SERP for its target keyword
- Estimated traffic at stake, so pages sort by money, not alphabetically
- The specific decay causes: intent drift, entity gaps, freshness, structure, links
- A prioritized rewrite plan your writers can execute the same day
Everything is read-only: paste URLs or import a sitemap. No CMS access, no tracking snippet, no site changes.
Tools to detect content decay, compared
Decay detection is no longer rare. Most content platforms now flag slipping pages, but they differ on how many pages they watch, what triggers the flag, and what you get back. All prices are public list prices.
| Tool | How it detects decay | Pages covered and price | What you get back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reoptimize | Scores each page against the live top results for its keyword and estimates traffic at stake | 100 / 1,000 / 5,000 pages for $49 / $149 / $399 per month billed yearly | A ranked queue plus a rewrite plan per page |
| Clearscope | Content Decay view compares each page's last 90 days of clicks with the same window a year earlier, with a 12-month trend line | 50 / 300 tracked pages for $129 / $399 per month | A list of sliding pages; optimization happens in drafts |
| Surfer SEO | Content Audit with ranking drop alerts and weekly quick-win notifications | 10 / 50 / 200 / 500 pages for $49 to $299 per month billed yearly | Alerts and refresh suggestions; rewrites in the Content Editor |
| Frase | Content Guard watches Google rankings through Search Console for pages created in Frase | 10 / 75 / 300 pages for $39 / $103 / $239 per month billed yearly | A revised draft, republished on your approval |
| Google Search Console | Manual date-range comparison in the Performance report | Every page, no subscription | Raw clicks and positions; the diagnosis is on you |
Pick by coverage first. If a tool watches 50 pages of a 600-page blog, it cannot tell you which of the other 550 are leaking. Then pick by output: an alert tells you something is wrong, a plan tells a writer what to change. Plan details for each vendor are on Frase pricing, Surfer SEO pricing, and Clearscope pricing. To do it by hand first, follow our walkthrough on finding content decay in Google Search Console.
Frequently asked questions
What is content decay?
Content decay is the gradual decline of a published page's search rankings and organic traffic over time as competitors publish fresher, more complete coverage and search intent shifts. It affects most content libraries and compounds quietly until someone measures it.
How do I check my site for content decay?
Import your pages into Reoptimize or paste URLs one at a time. Each page is scored against the pages currently ranking for its keyword, and declining pages are ranked by estimated traffic at stake.
Can decayed pages recover?
Usually, yes. Because the URL already has history and links, refreshed pages typically show movement faster than brand-new content. No one can guarantee rankings, but decayed pages with real history are the best recovery candidates in SEO.
What tools help me find pages with declining visibility?
Tools that find pages with declining visibility compare each URL's clicks and impressions now with an earlier period. Google Search Console does this for free, one date range at a time. Clearscope, Surfer SEO, and Frase flag drops on a capped set of tracked pages. Reoptimize watches 100 to 5,000 pages, ranks them by traffic at stake, and writes a rewrite plan for each.
What is the best content decay tool?
The best content decay tool is the one that covers your whole library and tells you what to fix. Clearscope, Surfer, and Frase flag decay on 10 to 500 tracked pages depending on plan. Reoptimize monitors 100 to 5,000 pages, ranks them by traffic at stake, and returns a rewrite plan for each declining page.
How often should you evaluate content decay?
Check for content decay monthly if organic search drives meaningful revenue, and run a full library review every quarter. Monthly checks catch pages sliding from the top five before the loss compounds. A decay tool that monitors continuously removes the calendar question and surfaces pages as soon as the trend turns.
Put it to work
Check one of your own pages
Paste a URL and a target keyword into the analyzer and watch the markup pass land: score, gaps, and the fixes that matter first.