Find Decaying Pages: GSC Triage + Content Refresh Plan

Content decay audit for Google Search Console: find pages losing traffic, label each drop (DECAYING, RANK_SLIP, CTR_DROP, LOST, STRIKING_DISTANCE), rank by clicks lost and get a content refresh plan.

Unlike free "paste GSC and tell me what to refresh" prompts that invent traffic recovery or guess causes, this skill runs a deterministic offline triage on two real Pages exports. Every page is flagged DECAYING, RANK_SLIP, CTR_DROP, LOST, STRIKING_DISTANCE, NEW or STABLE, ranked by clicks lost, with a pre-assigned action and a writer-ready refresh brief. No estimated "clicks you'll get back." No algorithm-penalty diagnosis.

Sample output (excerpt; fictional GSC two-period compare):

Top refresh brief (/guides/whatsapp-api):

• State: 260→120 clicks (−54%), CTR 5.0%→2.4%, position ~stable
• Likely cause: title/snippet CTR drop (impressions held); rule out SERP features before rewrite
• Do: refresh facts/dates, re-match intent, expand thin sections, 2 title/meta options, add 3 internal links from money pages
• Effort: M · Re-measure in 6 weeks with the same date ranges

Works in Claude Code, Cursor and Codex · tested on real GSC exports · no invented traffic or recovery claims · v1.0, updated Oct 2026 · questions answered via Agensi messages · Pair with our Apify Content Decay Audit for bulk CSV runs: https://apify.com/cygnix_labs/content-decay-audit

The problem Traffic slides a few percent a month and nobody notices which pages are doing it. Comparing GSC periods by hand is tedious and the fixes never get written up.

What it does

• Compares two GSC "Pages" exports offline and flags every page
• Ranks pages by clicks lost and pre-assigns the action: refresh, rewrite title/meta, boost, or leave
• Walks through cause checks (seasonality, migrations, noindex, SERP changes) before blaming the content
• Writes a refresh brief per page: what to update, add, cut, re-link and re-title
• Sets a re-measure date and re-runs the same script to prove what moved

Why this beats prompting it yourself The triage is a deterministic script run on your real Search Console numbers, so the same files always give the same answer. No traffic is estimated and no recovery is promised.

Use cases

• Quarterly content maintenance for blogs and SaaS sites
• Agencies proving value on retainer clients
• Finding page-2 quick wins

Pairs with: SEO Meta Title/Description Generator, SERP Intent Mapper, Topical Authority Map.

Pairs well with (Cygnix Labs, on Agensi):

• Keyword Research — Clusters + Intent Brief: find and cluster keywords
• Keyword Gap Analysis: keywords competitors rank for and you don't
• SERP Intent Mapper: match each keyword to the right page type
• Topical Authority Map: pillar, clusters and internal links
• SEO Content Brief (free): writer-ready brief for any keyword
• Content Refresh Audit: fix pages that are losing Google traffic
• Local SEO Keyword Pack / Local SEO Audit: for local businesses