Content refresh and update strategy: keeping pages ranking year after year

Content decay is the gradual loss of search rankings over time as content becomes outdated and competitors publish fresher alternatives. Every page on your Wix site that currently ranks well will eventually lose its position if not updated. This lesson gives you a systematic content refresh framework.

Identifying Content Decay in Google Search Console

How to find decaying content

• Open GSC Performance report and set the date range to the last 16 months
• Click the Date filter and select Compare > Previous period
• Sort by clicks (descending) and look for pages with declining clicks
• Pages showing 20%+ decline are prime candidates for a refresh
• Export the data and create a prioritised update list

What to Update

• Statistics and data: replace old numbers with current year data
• Screenshots: update any software or tool screenshots to current versions
• Examples: add new, recent examples and case studies
• Broken links: fix or replace any outbound links that no longer work
• New developments: add sections covering anything that has changed since publication
• Visual "Last updated" date: change the visible date on the page
• dateModified schema: update the dateModified property in your structured data

The Quarterly Refresh Cycle

Set a calendar reminder every 3 months to run a content audit. Identify your top 20 pages by traffic, check each one for decay signals, and refresh the ones showing decline. This 2-3 hour quarterly task protects more ranking value than any amount of new content creation.

Complete How-To Guide: Content Refresh and Update Strategy

Follow this step-by-step guide to identify declining content, refresh it systematically, and restore lost rankings on your Wix site.

Follow these steps to audit and refresh your declining content

• Open Google Search Console Performance report and filter by the last 6 months
• Export all pages sorted by clicks and identify pages where clicks or position have declined
• For each declining page check if the content contains outdated statistics dates or screenshots
• Update all statistics with current year data and cite the original source
• Refresh screenshots to show current interfaces and tools
• Add any new sections covering developments since the original publication
• Update the dateModified in your Article or BlogPosting schema to today's date
• Add a visible Last Updated date near the top of the page
• Check all internal and external links on the page and fix any broken ones
• Add 2-3 new internal links to recently published related content
• Resubmit the updated URL for indexing in Google Search Console
• Monitor the page's performance over the next 4-8 weeks in GSC to confirm recovery
• Create a quarterly calendar reminder to repeat this audit process