content-decay-detection
Installation
SKILL.md
Content Decay Detection
Content decay is the gradual decline in performance of published content over time. Pages that once ranked well lose position. Pages that were cited by AI engines get displaced. Data becomes outdated, competitors publish better content, and search algorithms change. Without active decay detection, your best content silently degrades.
20-30% of content value comes from refreshing existing pages. Detecting decay early — before traffic drops significantly — lets you fix pages with minimal effort instead of rebuilding from scratch.
What Causes Content Decay
| Cause | How it manifests | Detection signal |
|---|---|---|
| Content aging | Data, examples, pricing become outdated | dateModified is 6+ months old |
| Competitor displacement | A competitor published a better page | Ranking dropped 5+ positions |
| Search intent shift | Users now want different information for the same query | CTR dropped despite stable impressions |
| Algorithm update | Google or AI engine reweighted ranking signals | Sudden traffic drop across multiple pages |
| Product changes | Your product features or pricing changed but the page didn't | Page describes features/pricing that no longer exist |
| Link decay | Backlinks to the page were removed or devalued | Referring domains decreased |
| AI citation displacement | A competitor's page became the new cited source | Lost citation in ChatGPT/Perplexity/Gemini |