Did you recently witness a decline in your website’s traffic or search rankings? It’s not just frustrating for business owners or seasoned content marketers, it raises critical questions: Did you misstep, or is Google’s algorithm at play? These shifts in performance often boil down to two key culprits: content decay or algorithm updates.
In this guide, our SEO Sydney experts dive into the intricacies of content decay and algorithms. We’ll explore how these factors affect your SEO performance, and most importantly, provide you with the knowledge to effectively differentiate between them.
What is Content Decay?
Content decay is a natural part of the digital ecosystem. Search engines prioritise pages that remain highly relevant, comprehensive, and aligned with current search intent. Unlike penalties or sudden disruptions, this phenomenon is subtle but persistent.
Among the most common causes for older content to become less competitive over time includes new competitors, evolving industry trends, and user behaviour.
Pages affected by content decay often experience slow erosion in keyword rankings. Competitors with fresher, better-optimised content gradually outpace these once-top-performing pages.
Given that these content may no longer match updated search intent, click-through-rates (CTR) are also expected to dwindle. Furthermore, backlinks may also become less relevant, particularly if linked resources are outdated or no longer functional. This loss in link equity can impact a page’s ability to compete in the SERPs.
What Are Algorithm Updates?
Algorithm updates refine the way search engines deliver the most relevant, high-quality content to users. These updates often shift emphasis on specific factors, such as content quality, E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), mobile usability, or Core Web Vitals, which intend to improve content quality across the board.
While some updates are general, others target specific niches. Unfortunately, this can cause ranking volatility, making previously high-ranking sites lose visibility overnight if it no longer align with updated criteria.
Content Decay vs. Algorithm Updates: A Deep Dive
1. Timing
Content decay is a slow and steady process, occurring over months or even years. It’s often subtle at first, only coming to light during regular performance reviews or audits.
This is why consistent tracking of individual page performance is critical. What appears to be a ‘stable’ page may actually be slipping just under your radar. When doing your audits, pay attention to consistent but small month-over-month drops in impressions or clicks for individual pages. These are often the first signs of content decay.
Updates, by contrast, cause immediate and often dramatic fluctuations. A core update, for instance, might trigger a 30% drop or gain in traffic overnight. To mitigate this, use real-time rank-tracking tools to assess the suddenness of changes. Tools like SEMrush even have a SERP volatility tracking to let you know how heavily your industry was affected.
2. Scope of Impact
Decay typically affects specific pages or clusters of pages that share common traits, such as targeting outdated keywords, serving stale information, or failing to meet user intent.
It also tends to affect middle of the funnel content rather than high-conversion landing pages or top-performing blogs. These types of content generate fewer backlinks and updates over time, making them more vulnerable to declining relevance and rankings.
Updates often impact the entire site or multiple pages at once, especially if there are systemic issues including thin content, low E-A-T, or poor mobile responsiveness. For instance, during the 2022 Helpful Content Update, entire websites with shallow, AI-generated content saw widespread visibility losses.
If your website is experiencing the same kind of loss, look to your competitors with similar strategies or target audiences. If they are experiencing the same shifts, the change is highly likely to be algorithm-related.
3. Drivers
Decay results from the internal factors of your content. This means that if it hasn’t been updated, users and search engines would no longer see it as relevant or authoritative. The speed of decay is also often exacerbated by competitors regularly updating their content.
On the other hand, updates come from external factors. Unfortunately, they are not always as explicit as businesses and marketers would like. Google rarely provides detailed guidance about the weight of specific factors post-update, which means you’ll need to do your due diligence by analysing winners and losers across the SERPs.
Solutions: Refresh vs. Recalibrate
The strategies for addressing content decay and algorithm updates differ significantly, as each issue stems from distinct underlying causes. Fixing content decay revolves around breathing new life into older, underperforming content through targeted updates and enhancements.
This process, often referred to as a content refresh, involves updating old blog posts with new data, relevant examples, or current industry trends. It also means conducting fresh keyword research to realign content with modern search intent.
On the other hand, recovering from algorithm updates requires a more comprehensive recalibration of your site’s overall SEO strategy. This begins with a full content audit to identify pages that no longer meet the updated ranking criteria and improving E-A-T.
In addition to content adjustments, addressing technical SEO issues is essential, as these often become more critical following algorithm updates. To future-proof your content in the wake of algorithm updates, focus on creating materials that balance user-first practices with evergreen value.
Get ahead of your competitors and don’t let any changes in the digital realm overturn your hard-earned content results with the right strategies. If you’re ever in need of experts to take the guesswork out of your SEO and content marketing strategies, SEO Sydney is here to help.
Contact us today to book a consultation to boost your SEO rankings.
