// diagnose
Content Decay
Use when the user wants to find which pages are losing search traffic and which to refresh first - content decay, content refresh, "our blog traffic is flat", declining organic clicks, or a content audit from Search Console. Also use when the user mentions content decay, content refresh, update old posts, declining rankings, CTR optimisation, title tag tests, or wants to know where to spend the next content week. Takes a Search Console page export comparing two periods and sorts every page into decaying, demand drop, snippet loss, rising or stable, then ranks refresh candidates by the clicks they lost and finds page-one pages below the site's own CTR median.
npx skills add sarojkjha/aaj-marketing-skills --skill content-decayClaude Code
/plugin marketplace add sarojkjha/aaj-marketing-skills/plugin install aaj-marketing-skills@aajOpenAI Codex
codex plugin marketplace add sarojkjha/aaj-marketing-skillscodex plugin add aaj-marketing-skills@aajClaude or ChatGPT — no install
Add this as a custom connector:
https://aaj-engines-mcp.sarojkjha10.workers.dev/mcp// when to use it
Use when the user wants to find which pages are losing search traffic and which to refresh first - content decay, content refresh, "our blog traffic is flat", declining organic clicks, or a content audit from Search Console. Also use when the user mentions content decay, content refresh, update old posts, declining rankings, CTR optimisation, title tag tests, or wants to know where to spend the next content week. Takes a Search Console page export comparing two periods and sorts every page into decaying, demand drop, snippet loss, rising or stable, then ranks refresh candidates by the clicks they lost and finds page-one pages below the site's own CTR median.
// what you give
A Search Console Pages report comparing two periods of equal length - page, clicks and impressions for both periods, and average position where available
// what you get
Every page with a status and the reason; the refresh list ranked by clicks lost with the likely cause for each; title-and-snippet test candidates measured against your own site's CTR median by position band; rising pages and demand drops; site totals and concentration; findings and a verdict
Engine spec
// decision it supports
Which pages are losing search clicks, why, and which should we refresh first?
// inputs
A Search Console Pages report comparing two periods of equal length - page, clicks and impressions for both periods, and average position where available
// output
Every page with a status and the reason; the refresh list ranked by clicks lost with the likely cause for each; title-and-snippet test candidates measured against your own site's CTR median by position band; rising pages and demand drops; site totals and concentration; findings and a verdict
// acts or analyzes
Analyzes onlyMakes no network calls, writes no files and changes nothing in your tools.
// where your information goes
| How you run it | Where your inputs go |
|---|---|
| Skill installed in your agent, or the local MCP server | The engine runs on your machine and AAJ receives nothing. Your AI agent still sends what you give it to its model provider (Anthropic, OpenAI and so on), under your own account's terms. |
| Hosted MCP server | Your agent's model provider, as above, plus AAJ's server on Cloudflare, which receives the engine inputs over HTTPS, runs them in memory and keeps no copy. Cloudflare keeps error logs (no inputs) for up to 7 days. |
No engine needs customer names, emails or other personal data; leave them out.
// limitations
- It compares two periods only and cannot see seasonality or a site migration, so a demand drop or a decline may be the calendar, not the page. Compare equal periods and check the same period last year.
- Position is an average across all of a page's queries. A new low-ranking query can worsen the average while the main query held; check the Queries tab before refreshing.
- The CTR median is your own site's, from the rows you pass in. A filtered export skews it, and it is not a benchmark.
- Refresh order is by clicks lost alone. It does not know which pages matter commercially, and pages under 20 previous-period clicks are marked too small rather than judged.
// review before acting
// setup
npx skills add sarojkjha/aaj-marketing-skills --skill content-decayhttps://aaj-engines-mcp.sarojkjha10.workers.dev/mcpAgents listed: Claude Code, Cursor, OpenAI Codex, Windsurf, Cline. Tested and recorded: Claude Code.
Content Decay
A content programme has two kinds of work: the new page, which is fun, and the old page that ranked on page one last year and is now quietly losing a hundred clicks a month, which is not. The second kind pays back faster, because the page already has links, history and a position to recover. Nobody does it because the total traffic line still goes up, and the loss hides under the growth.
This engine finds the hidden loss. From a Search Console export that compares two equal periods, it sorts every page by what happened to it and why, and tells you which page to refresh first, measured in clicks lost rather than opinion.
When to use
Quarterly, or whenever organic clicks flatten. Also before planning a content calendar, so the refresh work gets a slot next to the new pages. Not for a site under three months old; there is no previous period yet.
Before you start
- Read the brand/product context first (
.agents/product-marketing.md) for the pages that matter commercially, so a decaying tool page outranks a decaying listicle in your attention. - Export from Search Console. Performance > Search results > Pages, with Date set to Compare (last 3 months vs previous 3 months, or two equal periods that avoid a known seasonal swing). Export all pages, not a filtered view; the site CTR median needs the whole set.
- Map the columns.
clicksandclicksPrev,impressionsandimpressionsPrev,positionandpositionPrev. Position is optional but separates a ranking loss from a snippet loss.
Method
A page is judged only with 20 or more clicks in the previous period (engine rule); below that the swings are noise. A move of 20% or more is a change (engine rule).
- Decaying: clicks down 20%+, impressions roughly flat. The demand is still there and you are getting less of it. If the average position worsened by 1.0 or more (engine rule), the page was outranked; refresh the content and read what now sits above it. If the position held, the click is being lost at the result itself; check the title and snippet before the content.
- Snippet loss: impressions up 20%+, clicks down 20%+. The page shows more and is chosen less; a SERP feature, an AI overview or a rival's title is taking the click. Title and snippet work, and a check of what the SERP now looks like.
- Demand drop: impressions down 20%+. Fewer people searched. Not the page's fault; check for seasonality before touching it.
- Rising and stable need nothing.
Refresh order is by clicks lost (previous minus current), because that is what the refresh can recover.
Title and snippet tests. Among page-one pages with 500+ impressions (engine rule), the engine computes your site's median CTR for positions 1-3 and 4-10 and lists the pages below it, with the clicks they would add at the median. This is your own site measured against itself; no published CTR curve is used, because none of them is your site.
Workflow
Step 1 - Export and run. Paste the rows; read the verdict and the counts line.
Step 2 - Take the top three refresh candidates. For each, open the live SERP for its main query:
who outranks it now, and what do they cover that the page does not. Write the refresh as a brief
with seo-content-brief so the update targets the gap rather than polishing prose.
Step 3 - Run the title tests. One title change per page, dated, and read the CTR eight weeks later against the same period the previous year where seasonality bites.
Step 4 - Leave demand drops alone until the same period next year, unless the topic has died.
Step 5 - Put the refreshes in the calendar (content-calendar-planning) with the same weight as
new pages, and re-run next quarter to see whether the refreshed pages recovered.
Run the tool
node resources/content-decay.js --demo
node resources/content-decay.js '{"pages":[{"page":"/blog/x","clicks":410,"clicksPrev":620,"impressions":18000,"impressionsPrev":17500,"position":6.8,"positionPrev":4.1}]}'
node resources/content-decay.js --help
run({ pages, periodDays }) returns every page with status and reason, the ranked refresh list,
title-test candidates, site totals, findings and a verdict. Deterministic, offline, no dependencies.
Present the result
- The verdict and the counts by status.
- Refresh list in order of clicks lost, each with its cause and the next check to make.
- Title and snippet tests with the CTR gap and the clicks at stake.
- Rising pages (what is working) and demand drops (what to leave alone).
- Findings, especially the masked-loss one: growth on new pages hiding losses on old ones.
Guardrails & common mistakes
- Compare equal periods and avoid a period that straddles a known seasonal swing or a site migration; the engine cannot see either.
- Never refresh a demand drop because it fell. Check the previous year first.
- Do not quote the CTR median as a benchmark. It is your site's median this period, nothing more.
- Position is an average across queries. A page that gained a new, low-ranking query can show a worse average position while its main query held. Check the Queries tab for the top candidates.
- Twenty clicks is the floor for judging, not for caring. A commercial page with 15 clicks that halved is still worth a look; the engine marks it too-small rather than hiding it.
- Refreshing is editing, not rewriting. Keep the URL, keep what still ranks, add what the SERP now expects, and update the date honestly.
Related AAJ resources
- Writing the refresh as a brief: https://aajconsult.com/tools/content-brief-builder
- Checking the refreshed page is readable and citable: https://aajconsult.com/tools/seo-geo-readiness-scorer
- Scheduling refreshes next to new content: https://aajconsult.com/templates/content-calendar-repurposing-tracker
- The content system this maintains: https://aajconsult.com/playbooks/content-creation-playbook
Related skills
seo-content-brief- the brief for each refreshgeo-content-optimization- when the click is being lost to an AI answercontent-calendar-planning- where the refresh work goesseo-geo-aeo-audit- the page-level check after the refreshaaj-programmatic-seo- decay across a template set
// faq
// install
npx skills add sarojkjha/aaj-marketing-skills --skill content-decay// worked example
Get the worked example for Content Decay
One email. The filled-in config, the output, and how to read it.
// human in the loop
Need a human in the loop?
AAJ builds the strategies, tools, and playbooks these skills are made of — with engagements for growth-stage and enterprise teams.