Most websites grow like a garage: things get added and almost nothing gets thrown out. After a few years you have hundreds of blog posts, several pages targeting the same topic, outdated statistics and product pages for things you no longer sell. Some of that content still earns traffic and leads. A lot of it just sits there.
A content audit is the process of taking stock of every page, measuring how it performs and deciding what to do with it: keep, update, merge, redirect or remove. Done well, it is one of the highest-return SEO projects you can run, because you are improving assets you already own instead of starting from scratch.
In this guide you will learn how to run a content audit step by step, which metrics to collect, how to make decisions with a simple scoring framework, and how to use the template columns we use with clients.
Key Takeaways
- A content audit is a systematic inventory and evaluation of your content, ending with a clear action for every URL.
- Combine performance data (Search Console, GA4, backlinks) with a quality review against Google’s helpful content questions.
- Use five outcomes: keep, update, merge, redirect or remove – and prioritise by business impact.
- Google describes deleting content as a last resort; improving or consolidating usually comes first.
- Re-measure after changes and repeat the audit on a regular schedule.
What is a content audit and why do one?
A content audit evaluates your existing content against your goals. Unlike a technical SEO audit, which looks at crawling, indexing and site health, a content audit asks: is this page useful, accurate, performing, and still worth having?
Common reasons to run one include:
- A traffic drop after a Google core update.
- A site migration or redesign where you need to decide what moves across.
- Many pages stuck as “Crawled – currently not indexed” in Search Console (see our guide to fixing crawled but not indexed pages).
- Several pages competing for the same keywords.
- Planning a new content marketing strategy and wanting to build on what already works.
Google’s own advice after core updates points in the same direction: take an objective look at your site as a whole and evaluate the pages that were most affected, using its self-assessment questions on helpful content.
How to do a content audit: step by step
- Set your goal and scope. Decide what you are trying to improve – organic traffic, leads, recovery after an update, preparing for a migration – and which sections you will audit (for example, only the blog, or the whole site).
- Build a URL inventory. Crawl the site with a tool such as Screaming Frog or Sitebulb and export indexable HTML pages. Cross-check against your XML sitemap and the Search Console page indexing report.
- Pull performance data. For each URL, add clicks, impressions, CTR and average position from the Search Console Performance report, plus sessions, engagement and conversions from GA4. Use 12 months where you can, to smooth seasonality.
- Add link and content data. Include referring domains, word count, publish and last-updated dates, author, primary topic and target keyword.
- Review quality manually. For important pages, read the content. Is it accurate, current and original? Does it match search intent? Would you be proud to send it to a customer?
- Assign an action to every URL. Use the decision table below: keep, update, merge, redirect or remove.
- Prioritise. Score actions by potential impact and effort, and start with pages that are close to page one or tied to revenue.
- Implement. Rewrite, consolidate and redirect. Update internal links so they point to the final URLs.
- Measure and repeat. Annotate changes, compare performance after a few months and schedule the next audit.
If you are new to Search Console, our guide to everything about Google Search Console explains where to find each report.
Content audit template: the columns to include
You can run an audit in Google Sheets or Excel. These are the columns we recommend:
| Column | Source | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| URL | Crawler / sitemap | The unique identifier for each page |
| Title and H1 | Crawler | Spot duplicates and weak titles |
| Content type and topic | Manual | Group pages into clusters and find overlap |
| Target keyword | Manual / SEO tool | Detect cannibalisation |
| Clicks, impressions, CTR, average position | Search Console | Organic visibility and click potential |
| Sessions, engagement rate, conversions | GA4 | Whether visitors find value and act |
| Referring domains | Backlink tool | Avoid deleting pages that earn links |
| Last updated | CMS | Find stale content |
| Quality score (1–5) | Manual review | Accuracy, depth, originality, intent match |
| Action, owner, priority, notes | Manual | Turn findings into a work plan |
Deciding what to do with each page
Once your data is in place, every URL should get one of five outcomes. This decision table keeps the process consistent across a team.
| Situation | Action | How |
|---|---|---|
| Performs well, accurate and current | Keep | Leave as is; add internal links to boost related pages |
| Ranks on page 2–3 or traffic is declining | Update | Refresh facts, improve depth and intent match, improve title and meta description to lift CTR |
| Several pages cover the same topic | Merge | Combine the best parts into one stronger page; 301 redirect the others (see keyword cannibalisation) |
| Outdated but has links or traffic | Redirect | Permanently redirect to the closest relevant page; read 301 vs 302 redirects |
| No traffic, no links, no business value, can’t be improved | Remove | Delete and return 404 or 410; fix internal links pointing to it (see fixing 404 errors) |
A note on deleting content
“Prune thin content” is popular advice, but Google’s guidance is more nuanced.
“Deleting content is a last resort, and only to be considered if you think the content can't be salvaged.”
— Google Search Central, Google Search's core updates and your website
The same page adds that if content truly is unhelpful, deleting it can help the good content on your site perform better. In practice: try to improve or consolidate first, and remove only pages that have no realistic path to being useful.
How to judge content quality
Numbers tell you where to look; a human review tells you why a page underperforms. Use questions adapted from Google’s helpful content self-assessment:
- Does the page provide original information, research or analysis?
- Does it fully answer the question a searcher has?
- Is it clear who wrote it and why they are qualified?
- Would a reader leave feeling they learned enough to achieve their goal?
- Is it mainly summarising other sources without adding value?
- Is any information out of date, inaccurate or unsupported?
Common mistakes
- Deleting pages based on traffic alone. A page with few visits might convert well, support sales or earn backlinks.
- Forgetting redirects and internal links. Merged or removed pages leave broken links and lost link equity if you don’t clean up.
- Only changing the date. Google’s helpful content guidance lists changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh, when the content has not substantially changed, as a warning sign.
- Auditing without a goal. Without a clear objective, the spreadsheet grows but nothing gets done.
- Using too short a date range. A month of data can mislead for seasonal content.
- Never measuring the impact. Annotate changes and compare results so you know what worked; our SEO KPIs guide lists metrics to track.
If a large traffic loss coincides with a manual action rather than an algorithm update, the fix is different – see our Google penalty recovery service.
Related Guides
- Pillar Pages and Topic Clusters: How to Build Them
- YouTube SEO: How to Rank Your Videos
- How to Build a Content Marketing Strategy
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I do a content audit?
Most sites benefit from a full audit once a year, with lighter quarterly checks of top pages and declining URLs. Large or fast-moving sites, such as news or ecommerce, may need continuous monitoring.
What is the difference between a content audit and an SEO audit?
An SEO audit covers the whole site’s technical health, on-page factors and links. A content audit focuses on the content itself – its performance, quality, accuracy and fit with your strategy – and ends with keep, update, merge or remove decisions for each URL.
Should I delete low-traffic pages?
Not automatically. Low traffic can be fine for pages that serve customers or convert well. Google describes deleting content as a last resort, for content that can’t be salvaged. Improve or merge first, and redirect removed URLs that have links or traffic.
Which tools do I need for a content audit?
At minimum: a crawler (such as Screaming Frog or Sitebulb), Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4 and a spreadsheet. Backlink data from an SEO platform helps you avoid deleting pages that earn links.
Does updating the published date help rankings?
Changing a date without meaningful changes does not make content more helpful. Update the date when you have substantially revised the page, and make the changes worthwhile for readers.
Conclusion
A content audit turns a messy archive into a focused, high-performing library. Inventory every URL, combine data with an honest quality review, assign clear actions and measure the results. Want experts to run the audit and implement the fixes? Our content management team can handle it end to end – get a free quote to start.
References
- Google Search Central – Google Search's core updates and your website
- Google Search Central – Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
- Search Console Help – Performance report (Search results)
- Google Search Central – Redirects and Google Search
- Semrush – How to do a website content audit (with template)
