®SEO content audit
Find pages losing traction, prioritize quick wins, and monitor pages being optimized.
What this page is for
The Content Audit turns Search Console history into a review queue for existing pages.
Use it to identify sustained losses, catch early declines, find achievable opportunities, and monitor pages after optimization.
Before you use it
- Connect Google Search Console to the production property.
- Allow the initial history load to finish.
- Confirm published URLs for Superpractice articles where needed.
- Review a page's actual content and search queries before starting an optimization.
The page updates from Search Console history. A recent incomplete period can change as source data settles.
Read the triage strip
| Category | What it means |
|---|---|
| Losing Traction | Pages with a meaningful sustained decline that need review |
| Early Slip | A smaller or earlier decline worth watching |
| Quick Wins | Pages with a plausible opportunity to improve useful visibility |
| Optimizing | Pages currently being monitored after an optimization started |
| Recovered | Pages that regained measurable traction |
These are prioritization categories, not automatic diagnoses. Seasonal demand, changed search results, a revised URL, or measurement gaps can create similar patterns.
Work the Losing traction card
- Review the pages with the most meaningful clicks at risk.
- Expand a row when more detail is available.
- Compare current clicks and position with the page's stronger period.
- Review the most affected query and the live page.
- Click:
- Optimize to update that page. If Superpractice did not write it, the page is brought in first. You review the changes, and they publish to the same address. It never creates a second page.
- Use Shelve when the page should stop appearing in active triage.
Shelving removes the page from the active review lane. The confirmation includes Undo so you can restore it immediately.
What an update keeps
An update rewrites what needs it and leaves the rest of the live page alone:
- Sections that bring in searches stay. If a rewrite drops one, or it no longer answers the searches it earned, its live text goes back in its place. The update's steps show Kept the sections that earn searches.
- Your firm's own sections are kept word for word, such as your offer, contact details, results, and credentials.
- Headings keep their wording.
- Blocks it does not rewrite come back exactly as they were, such as tables, lists, forms, buttons, embedded videos, and link settings. Sections the update did not change publish exactly as they are on the live page.
- Flagged claims are fixed, as in a new article. The editor shows the update's Fact Check panel, and the page gets a meta description.
- A new set of images replaces the images in the page's body, made the way a new article's are. If none can be made, the page keeps its own. Your firm's own sections get no images, and galleries stay as they are.
Publishing stops, and says why, if it would remove an image, a table, one of your firm's sections, or a section that brings in searches.
Monitor Being optimized
This card tracks pages after optimization work starts.
| State | How to use it |
|---|---|
| Too Early | Wait for enough search data before judging the result. An update that is written but not yet published says Update written, not published yet: recovery is tracked from the day it goes live. |
| Recovering | The page is moving in a favorable direction |
| Not Working | Recheck the change and consider Re-optimize |
The optimizing count shows the active monitoring capacity. Shelve frees a monitoring slot and stops recovery tracking for that page.
Pages that compete
When several of your pages answer the same search, the audit shows them as page groups, with the step each one needs. See Page groups.
Use All pages
The All pages table is the complete audit inventory.
- Search by page title or URL.
- Filter with the status pills:
- All
- Losing
- Slipping
- Quick wins
- Top
- Stable
- New
- Click a metric heading to sort the complete filtered result.
- Review clicks, position, score, impressions, CTR, trend, and status together.
- Click Optimize only after reviewing the live page.
- Use pagination for the remaining results.
Export the audit
- Set the search and status filters you want.
- Click Export CSV.
- Open the file and confirm that the exported scope matches the on-screen filters.
The export is useful for planning and assignment. Return to the current audit before acting on an older file.
Decide whether to optimize, consolidate, or wait
Before changing a page:
- Confirm the decline is sustained across complete periods.
- Review the query or topic that changed.
- Check for competing pages on your own site.
- Verify that the page is still accurate and aligned with the firm's services.
- Decide whether the best action is:
- improve the existing page
- consolidate overlapping content
- repair a technical or URL issue
- leave the page unchanged and monitor it
Deleting or redirecting a page can permanently affect search traffic. The audit does not replace a technical and editorial review.
If data is missing
- Connect Google Search Console.
- Wait for the initial history load to complete.
- Clear search text and status filters.
- Confirm the page belongs to the connected property.
- Review URL matching when an article cannot be opened in the editor.
- Allow enough post-change time before judging an optimization.