Calculate your content's monthly decay rate, half-life, and projected future traffic. Identify when content needs refreshing before it loses significant organic value.
Content decay measures how quickly a piece of content loses traffic over time. Understanding decay rate helps prioritize content refresh investments.
Enter your content's peak traffic and current traffic to calculate its decay rate and get refresh recommendations.
Get our guide to identifying, prioritizing, and refreshing decaying content for maximum SEO impact.
Content decay is the gradual loss of organic traffic a piece of content experiences over time. Even high-performing content naturally declines as search algorithms update, competitors publish newer content, and user intent evolves. Understanding your decay rate helps you prioritize which content to refresh before it becomes irrelevant.
Example 1: Decaying Blog Post
Peak Traffic: 10,000/month | Current Traffic: 4,000/month | 24 months since peak
Decay Rate = (1 - 4,000/10,000) / 24 × 100 = 2.5% per month (30% annually)
Example 2: Evergreen Content
Peak Traffic: 5,000/month | Current Traffic: 4,100/month | 18 months since peak
Decay Rate = (1 - 4,100/5,000) / 18 × 100 = 1.0% per month (12% annually — healthy)
Key indicators for content refresh: traffic has declined 30%+ from peak, content ranks on page 2-3 for target keywords, published date is 18+ months ago for rapidly-changing topics, competitors have published more comprehensive pieces, or the content no longer reflects current best practices.
How long does content last before decaying?
Content half-life varies by type. News content can lose 90% of traffic within weeks. Standard blog posts typically see 50% traffic decay within 12-18 months. Evergreen how-to guides and reference content can maintain traffic for 3-5+ years with periodic updates.
Does updating old content help SEO?
Yes — updating content with new information, examples, statistics, and expanded depth signals freshness to search engines. Studies show content refreshes can recover 50-100% of lost organic traffic and sometimes exceed original peak performance.
What's the best way to prevent content decay?
Build a content maintenance calendar: review top-performing content every 6-12 months, update statistics and examples annually, expand thin content with more depth, and consolidate duplicate content pieces that may be cannibalizing each other's rankings.