# Find content decay before it shows in the monthly total

> A content decay heatmap from Google Search Console: your top pages month by month over 16 months, each compared with its own peak, labelled decaying, growing or stable.

The heatmap lists your top pages against every month of Search Console’s 16 months. Each cell compares the month with that page’s own best month, so a page that is slowly fading stands out even while the site as a whole grows.

Page: https://serplyze.com/features/content-decay

## What it answers

### “Which articles should we refresh this quarter?”

Filter to the pages labelled decaying and you have a refresh list, each with the clicks it used to bring.

### A site that grows while old winners fade

New pages hide the loss in the total. Comparing each page with its own peak shows the ones that halved quietly.

### Checking one section

Search or filter the heatmap by URL (the blog, a category, a language folder) and see whether the decline is one page or the whole section.

## How it works: How the heatmap is calculated

It uses only your Search Console data, synced automatically. Nothing to upload or tag.

1. **Top pages × months.** Your top pages by clicks, one row each, one column per month for the last 3, 6, 12 or 16 months.
2. **Clicks per day.** Each month is measured in clicks per day, so a 28-day February and a 31-day March compare fairly.
3. **Share of the page’s peak.** Every cell is that month as a share of the page’s best month: green near the peak, red far below it.
4. **A label per page.** Decaying when the last three months sit 30% or more below the page’s peak, growing when they are 30% or more above the months before, stable otherwise. Export the view to CSV.

## What you get

- Top pages against 16 months of Search Console data
- Decaying, growing and stable labels from the last three months
- Search and filter by URL; open any page for its queries and daily trend
- CSV export of the whole view
- Google’s ranking updates marked on the page’s charts, to read a drop against what Google changed

Availability: All plans. Free covers your top 100 pages by clicks; paid plans the top 500.

## What it doesn’t do

- It shows that a page is losing clicks, not why: seasonality, a competitor or a Google update can all look the same in the heatmap.
- History is limited to the 16 months Search Console keeps.
- It reads clicks from Google Search only, not other traffic sources.

## Questions

### What is content decay?

Content decay is the slow loss of search traffic to a page that once did well: it falls a little each month as it gets older, competitors publish newer pages or the search results change. Because each month’s drop is small, it is easy to miss in site totals.

### How is a page labelled decaying?

From its last three months compared with its own history: clicks per day 30% or more below the page’s peak month is decaying, 30% or more above the months before is growing, and the rest are stable. Pages with too few clicks get no label.

### Do I need Google Analytics for this?

No. The heatmap uses clicks from Search Console only, which is the search traffic Google itself counted for each page.

### How many pages does it cover?

Your top pages by clicks: the top 100 on Free and the top 500 on paid plans.

## Related

- [Keyword cannibalization](https://serplyze.com/features/keyword-cannibalization.md): Queries where two of your URLs compete
- [AI Overviews impact](https://serplyze.com/features/ai-search-impact.md): Top rankings that kept their position but lost clicks
- [Search Console rank tracking](https://serplyze.com/features/search-console-rank-tracking.md): Daily keyword positions with the clicks behind them