content-decay-detector

Content Decay Detector

Monitor existing content for ranking drops and generate a prioritized refresh queue. Refreshing decaying content is the highest-ROI SEO activity — it's faster and cheaper than creating new content, and recovering a lost position is easier than earning a new one.

Stage

S3: Blog & SEO — Blog maintenance and optimization. This skill keeps your existing content competitive and prevents rankings from silently eroding.

When to Use

• User has existing blog content and wants to check for decay
• User notices traffic declining on specific pages
• User asks "what content needs updating?"
• User says "content decay", "ranking drops", "stale content", "refresh", "content audit"
• Monthly maintenance check — should run every 30 days on active blogs
• After seo-audit reveals declining pages

Input Schema

site_url: string              # REQUIRED — the site to audit
                              # e.g., "myblog.com", "example.com/blog"

content_list: object[]        # OPTIONAL — specific pages to check
  - url: string               # Page URL
    title: string             # Page title
    publish_date: string      # Original publish date
    last_updated: string      # Last update date
    target_keyword: string    # Primary keyword

check_competitors: boolean    # OPTIONAL — whether to check if competitors published fresher content
                              # Default: true

timeframe: string             # OPTIONAL — "30d" | "90d" | "6m" | "1y"
                              # Default: "90d"

Chaining from S6 seo-audit: Use declining_pages as the content_list.

Workflow

Step 1: Gather Content Data

If content_list not provided:

1. web_search: site:[site_url] — discover indexed pages
2. Identify the top 15-20 most important pages (by topic relevance)
3. For each page, note: title, URL, apparent publish/update date

Step 2: Check for Decay Signals

Read shared/references/seo-strategy.md for decay signals and refresh methodology.