How to do a content audit: what to update, merge or remove
A content audit is a review of everything on your site to see what is working, what is out of date, and what to improve or remove. As a site grows, it is how you keep your content library healthy. It is also one of the cheapest ways to improve search performance, because most of the gain comes from making what you already have better rather than adding more.
Why audits help
Publishing new content gets the attention, but fixing existing content is often the faster win. A page that already has some traction can climb with a refresh far quicker than a brand-new page can rank from scratch. And a site with many thin, outdated, or overlapping pages can weaken how the whole site is seen. Google has said that a large amount of unhelpful content can affect how a site as a whole is judged.
Step 1: list every page, with data
Make a simple spreadsheet with every indexable page and, for each, a few columns from Search Console and your analytics.
- Clicks and impressions over the last twelve months.
- Conversions or enquiries, if you track them.
- Word count, and the date it was last meaningfully updated.
- Which internal links point to it.
Step 2: sort each page into one of four groups
- Keep as is: the page performs, or does its job, and is accurate.
- Refresh: the topic still matters, but the page is dated or thin.
- Merge: several pages cover nearly the same thing and compete with each other.
- Remove: no traffic, no value, and no reason to exist.
Refreshing a page
These pages are the best use of your time, especially those sitting on page two of results, where a nudge can lift them.
- Update the facts, figures, and advice that have changed.
- Add depth and clarity where the page is thin, answering the follow-up questions.
- Improve the internal links to and from it, and check it still matches what searchers want now.
- Update the visible date only when the change is real. Changing a date to make a page look new is something to avoid.
Merging overlapping pages
When two or three pages target the same intent, combine them into one stronger page and permanently redirect the old addresses to it.
- Keep the best material from each, rather than just the longest.
- Redirect each old address to the merged page, in one step.
- Update internal links so they point to the new address directly.
This also resolves keyword cannibalization, where your own pages compete for the same search.
Removing a page
If a page has no value, no traffic, and no links, it can be removed. Where it has some links or occasional visits, redirect it to the closest relevant page. If there is genuinely nothing relevant, let it return a not-found response rather than redirecting to the homepage, which search engines treat as an error.
Step 3: fill the gaps
The audit also shows what is missing: questions customers ask that no page answers, services without a dedicated page, and topics where competitors are clearly ahead. Add those to your content plan, ahead of anything else you were going to write.
How often
For most small businesses, a full audit once or twice a year is plenty, with a quick check of your top pages each quarter. Quality over quantity applies to pruning as well. A site with fewer, better pages almost always outperforms a larger one full of thin ones.