Decay detection
How to use it
- Open decay detection — it watches rank, impression, and CTR trends automatically. (SEO → Decay)
- Review flagged pages slipping before traffic drops.
- Refresh the content while the page still has authority.
⏱ Automatic · 💳 Pro · 🎯 Catch the slide ~2 months early
Why this matters for your business
Most blog content has a 6-18 month "useful life" before rankings decay. The decay is gradual — drops a position per week, then accelerates. By the time traffic visibly drops, the page has slid from #4 to #15 and recovery is hard.
Decay detection catches the slide early. When a page that was ranking stably starts trending down, the system flags it (with confidence intervals) so you can refresh while the page still has authority — much easier than rebuilding from position 30.
What you actually get
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| Multi-signal detection | Rank trend + impression trend + CTR drift |
| Confidence levels | High / medium / low (avoid false alarms) |
| Refresh suggestions | "Update statistics", "add 2024 examples", "improve internal linking" |
| Refresh-vs-rewrite recommendation | Sometimes minor refresh is enough; sometimes full rewrite needed |
| Track refresh outcomes | Did the refresh recover the rank? |
How teams use it
Scenario A — Brand catches decay across 8 pages
Setup. Brand had 8 pillar posts ranking well for years. Detector flagged 5 as "high-confidence decay."
Action: Refreshed all 5 (statistics updated, new examples added).
What to watch: track those pages' keywords and judge the refresh on position over the following weeks. Some pages recover on a refresh; others have decayed because search intent moved, and no amount of updating statistics will bring them back — the next scenario is that case.
Scenario B — Refresh-vs-rewrite call
Setup. Page had decayed from #5 to #22.
Detector recommendation: "Full rewrite recommended — Google shifted intent for this query toward video content; current text post unlikely to recover with refresh alone."
Action: Created a video version + kept text as supporting content — the point being that "refresh" and "rewrite" are different decisions, and a page that decayed because the SERP changed shape needs the second one.
Plan tiers
| Capability | Free | Starter | Pro | Agency | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decay detection | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-signal scoring | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Refresh suggestions | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Refresh outcome tracking | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |