However updating web site content material shouldn’t simply imply altering a publish date.
It’s an opportunity to enhance person expertise, construct your owned viewers, and form how AI represents your model.
I’ll stroll you thru techniques that allow you to accomplish the entire above—with out consuming up days of your time.
Watch tutorial on YouTube
Not each weblog submit you publish will rank in search engines like google and yahoo. Even in case you’ve completed key phrase analysis and written nice content material, it’s not at all times potential to get issues proper in your first try.
For instance, we printed a submit about “hyperlink reclamation” in 2018. It wasn’t an entire failure, however it by no means obtained greater than an estimated 350 natural visits per month.
So, in August 2024, we rewrote and republished the submit. Site visitors has not doubled however tripled since then.
Common content material updates set off Google to resurface your pages, earn you spots in AI solutions, and switch one-time guests into repeat readers.
You’ll be able to revive slipping rankings and reclaim misplaced visitors
Refreshing content material is essential for conventional search visibility.
Google has a search rating system known as “question deserves freshness” the place it prioritizes content material that has been not too long ago printed or up to date—it’s often for well timed content material like latest occasions, trending subjects, breaking information, and even “greatest” product suggestions.
So updating web site content material will help you revive slipping rankings and reclaim misplaced visitors.
Content material updates additionally influence person indicators.
For instance, when you could have an outdated title, you are inclined to get fewer clicks.
In keeping with the Google exploit found by Mark Williams-Prepare dinner, Google makes use of CTR when re-ranking your content material, and have constructed “Click on likelihood” fashions that may change primarily based on issues like the way you modify your web page title.
AI depends on search content material for recent info
Most AI assistants fetch recent search outcomes by means of the method of retrieval augmented technology, in any other case often called RAG.
They’re pulling recent info from search indexes, not simply counting on static coaching information.
AI cites “more energizing” content material
In keeping with our personal AI content material freshness analysis, URLs cited by AI assistants are 25.7% “more energizing” in comparison with URLs within the SERPs.
ChatGPT is the almost certainly to quote newer pages, and Perplexity and ChatGPT really order their citations from latest to oldest.
ChatGPT even has a “URL freshness rating”
Chris Lengthy not too long ago discovered that ChatGPT fan-out queries frequently retrieve “2025 content material”, and Metehan Yeşilyurt found that ChatGPT really has a “URL_freshness_score”, which creates a form of recency bias in its cited responses.
He additionally writes about a college research the place researchers added synthetic dates to numerous items of content material, and noticed them leaping up 95 locations within the rankings of seven totally different AI fashions.
It’s not nearly robots—readers nonetheless matter
Site visitors is dropping, however many customers will nonetheless find yourself clicking by means of to your website.
In case your examples are outdated or your information is years previous, that’s a good way to construct a destructive model notion.
Republishing content material is subsequently simply as a lot about fame administration as it’s about visibility.
And that fame issues greater than ever now that direct visitors has grow to be a moat.
For those who’re making an attempt to construct a vacation spot website or forge a group, irrelevant content material isn’t going to have customers in search of you out or returning to your website.
Contemporary content material is what is going to maintain folks coming again.
Your content material shapes AI’s notion of your model
Updating web site content material doesn’t simply get your model cited extra usually in AI, it will get it talked about extra precisely.
Once you republish content material, you can also make positive AI assistants have the fitting details about issues like your pricing, USPs, options, and advantages.
Conserving these “model info” up-to-date is essential now that any piece of net content material can be utilized as the premise for an AI response.
Zero-click search signifies that customers don’t find yourself visiting your website as usually. So, the trouble:reward ratio of updating content material has decreased.
The query is, are you able to justify spending time and power on refreshing content material in case you’re getting much less publicity in return?
At Ahrefs we frequently refresh our content material, however we break these updates into two classes:
1. Fast updates
I consider these as “minimal viable content material updates”. What are the smallest tweaks you can also make that result in outsized returns?
2. Rewrites
The second sort of replace is full-on rewrites.
You often do these updates when you could have a secondary enterprise purpose—past simply enhancing natural visitors.
For instance, in case you’ve launched a brand new product that’s related to the subject of an previous weblog, then you definately may need to do a full rewrite of that weblog as a substitute of a fast replace.
In that case the content material refresh doesn’t simply have the purpose of elevated search visibility, it additionally has a buyer help purpose or a gross sales purpose.
For the remainder of this text, I’m going to give attention to “Fast updates”.
There are not any hard-and-fast guidelines for updating content material. Okay, I lied, there’s one: Don’t simply change the publish date.
As Roxana Stingu factors out
“Google spent lots of time refining the way it handles [updates] and it could possibly look again throughout a number of variations of a web page and assess whether or not a change is significant sufficient outdoors of simply getting a brand new timestamp.”
Proper now, altering a publish date is likely to be working for AI visibility—however it works till it doesn’t…
As Mark Williams-Prepare dinner says…
“Google additionally has a binary belief sign on the subject of issues like lastmod. So abuse it if you wish to lose it.”
On condition that various AI citations are Google rankings in disguise, I’d say it’s greatest to keep away from wholesale content material republishing with zero precise modifications.
Nice. Now that we’ve obtained that out of the best way, let’s get into just a few sensible concepts of how one can go about updating your content material.
Once you begin off, you need to discover decrease effort, increased reward updates. So, right here’s an thought of the right way to do that.
- Head to the High Pages report in Ahrefs Website Explorer.
- Drop in your website—both the area or a particular subfolder. Under, I’ve gone with the Ahrefs Weblog.
- Arrange a visitors filter, and set that to “declining”. You need to select a month-to-month visitors quantity that’s in the direction of the highest finish of what you often obtain out of your greatest, most seen pages.
- Set a low KD filter (e.g. as much as 40). Content material isn’t at all times the rationale your posts cease rating. It will also be as a result of the pages outranking you could have extra high-quality backlinks and, subsequently, “hyperlink authority”. Setting a low Key phrase Problem rating will present you replace alternatives in a much less aggressive SERP.
- Choose the date vary you need to monitor the decline over. For me, that’s one 12 months.
- Type by destructive visitors change. So that you’re principally zeroing in on the highest pages in your website which have dropped off these days.
- Test Content material Modifications. This reveals you which of them pages have been up to date over your date vary.
Members of your staff may need already pushed an replace not too long ago, so intention to keep away from pages with “Main” or “Overhaul” modifications, like our /most-searched-people/ weblog.
As a substitute take note of the pages that haven’t been republished.
Content material with “Minor” modifications will often solely have had tiny tweaks made, like: dynamic content material blocks or widgets altering.
Articles with “Average” modifications sometimes have had a few sentences rewritten. Each make for good replace alternatives.
As a aspect word, now you can save this filter configuration as a preset, and are available again to it everytime you need to replace your prime pages.
In Ahrefs Content material Explorer you’ll be able to analyze the content material of a particular area, then hit the “Republished pages” filter to see which items of content material have been most not too long ago up to date.
On this instance, I’m digging into the entire content material on the HubSpot weblog that’s been republished over the past 12 months.
You’ll be able to add in your area if you wish to examine your individual content material updates, however on this occasion I’m conducting a form of competitor evaluation on HubSpot.
They’re not a direct competitor of ours, however we create lots of overlapping content material. So, my intention right here is actually to recreate their most profitable updates.
I particularly like utilizing the Content material Explorer view for updates as a result of it provides you the prospect to see a number of pattern traces at as soon as.
You’ll be able to scroll by means of the record of content material, immediately spot the visitors spikes, and perceive which updates have been successful.
Or, in case you’re auditing your individual content material, you’ll be able to shortly grok which updates didn’t work, so you’ll be able to attempt once more.
What I’ll say is that not all of those pattern peaks and dips are as a result of websites republishing content material. There are different causes for visitors change, like algorithm updates.
However usually talking, this report is an efficient springboard for deeper evaluation of “profitable” content material.
![Ahrefs Content Explorer results with a detailed card expanded for "The top search engines other than Google [+ some you might not expect]" article from blog.hubspot.com/marketing/top-search-engines. The card shows page traffic of 12.6K with an orange traffic trend graph spiking](https://ahrefs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/word-image-192251-9.png)
This HubSpot weblog caught my eye as a result of we even have a weblog on the “High search engines like google and yahoo”.
I’m thinking about what learnings we are able to take from HubSpot’s replace that we are able to apply to our personal weblog replace.
When you’ve discovered a profitable replace thought, you’ll be able to take the URL over to Website Explorer to do a deep-dive evaluation.
Begin off by following the pattern line, and look out for the inexperienced circles. That is one other aspect of the Content material Modifications instrument I discussed earlier.
For those who see a circle previous a visitors spike, then it’s a tell-tale signal that visitors has improved as the results of a content material refresh.
The scale of the circle signifies the quantity of content material that was modified, and the location of the circle on the x-axis signifies the date that the content material refresh occurred.
So, on this instance, HubSpot made “Overhaul” modifications to their article in early September.
For those who click on on that circle, you will note a side-by-side comparability of the article content material earlier than and after the replace, so you already know precisely what content material has been modified and added.
As you’ll be able to see, HubSpot have rewritten a good chunk of the weblog content material right here and, in consequence, they’ve managed to claw again 10K+ month-to-month natural visits.
I’d name {that a} success.
Then again, this can be a view of our personal weblog on the identical subject of “prime search engines like google and yahoo”.
As you’ll be able to see it isn’t really doing too nicely proper now.
We up to date it again in March and it noticed a cursory spike, however since then it’s flatlined.
The intention is to study what HubSpot obtained proper with their replace, in order that we are able to revive our personal content material.
You’ll be able to repeat this evaluation for a number of rivals to get concepts for subjects to create and replace.
It’s tough to know what’s going to really drive visitors in a zero-click search panorama, so this can be a technique that may give you reassurance.
You’ll be able to validate whether or not visitors alternatives exist earlier than you begin updating your content material.
In case your final purpose is AI visibility, you’ll be able to research your rivals’ updates, and see if they’re profitable new AI citations.
Right here’s what I imply.
I’ve headed to the Cited Pages report in Ahrefs Model Radar, our AI visibility instrument, and dropped within the HubSpot weblog as a web page URL filter.
Their most-cited article in AI Overviews is one on the subject ‘Aggressive evaluation’. This piqued my curiosity as a result of we’ve got an article on this subject, and I do know it’s misplaced visitors these days.
HubSpot’s weblog began gaining momentum round April time. I clicked the arrow subsequent to the URL for extra info, and hit “Examine” to see what may need induced this.
This pulled up the Content material Modifications instrument, which confirmed me precisely when content material updates had been made (by way of the calendar view), and precisely how the content material had been up to date (by way of the side-by-side textual content comparability view).
Lo and behold, HubSpot had pushed a significant replace to that article in April—April eleventh to be exact.
Across the similar time that the article began gaining extra traction in AI Overviews.
On April eleventh, HubSpot’s weblog was cited in 151 responses. Now it’s cited in 476 responses. So, AI visibility has multiplied by 3X.
Even when the replace wasn’t the only cause for this development, it appears to solely have helped.
When you’ve obtained an thought of the content material you can replace, subsequent it is advisable take into consideration whether or not you ought to replace it.
Does it nonetheless have Enterprise Potential?
Once you’re updating content material, it is advisable rethink whether or not the subject continues to be related sufficient to your small business.
High-of-funnel informational content material isn’t getting the identical visitors it used to.
So, ask your self: have I misplaced visitors as a result of this subject isn’t really that related to my model anymore?
If sure—it’s in all probability not value updating.
Is it a content material subject or a backlinks subject?
Content material points are fixable. A refresh might allow you to reclaim one or two positions.
However backlink points sign an authority drawback, which is way more durable to unravel—constructing authority can take months of outreach and PR.
Take the instance of our submit rating for the key phrase “Inside linking”.
Going by Ahrefs’ SERP Overview instrument, we are able to see nearly all of posts that outrank us have increased UR scores, indicating increased page-level authority.
On this case, we in all probability have a hyperlink authority subject, not a content material subject.
Whereas, if we examine the SERP Overview for “What’s native search engine optimisation” we see just a few lower-authority pages from lower-authority websites outranking us.
This tells us that we in all probability have a content material subject.
If we do a content material refresh and republish the submit concentrating on “What’s native search engine optimisation”, it’s extremely seemingly we might rank no less than one or two positions increased.
Does demand nonetheless exist for the subject?
Analyze whether or not your visitors dropped as a result of demand dropped.
If search quantity is declining, there’s diminishing returns in updating.
Take the time period “Fractional search engine optimisation marketing consultant”—it peaked round November 2024 however now appears to be falling out of vogue.
In circumstances like this, it is probably not worthwhile updating.
Has search intent shifted?
Search intent usually shifts.
“LLM” used to imply “Grasp of Legal guidelines” however by 2024, “giant language mannequin” content material dominated.
You’ll be able to spot search intent shifts within the SERP Overview instrument—look for many “Misplaced” and “New” rankings, plus a low SERP similarity rating.
When intent has shifted drastically, resolve whether or not your content material continues to be related for the person.
Are SERP options killing your clicks?
In our analysis, we discovered that AI Overviews scale back CTRs by 34.5%.
If an AI Overview started showing proper across the time your visitors started dropping, it’s potential that it’s not worthwhile updating that content material until the key phrase has excessive Enterprise Potential.
You’ll be able to examine when SERP Options present up utilizing the SERP Overview instrument in Ahrefs Key phrase Explorer.
Are there different indicators of life?
Test metrics like time on web page and views per go to.
If engagement continues to be robust regardless of visitors drops, the content material could also be worthy of a refresh. You need to use Ahrefs Internet Analytics for this.
You’ve discovered the content material you need to refresh, and also you’ve made positive it’s worthwhile updating—now it’s time to really do the factor.
The best place to begin is filling your subject gaps. You’ll be able to take your article over to the Ahrefs AI Content material Helper to do this.
It grades your content material towards top-ranking pages, so you’ll be able to spot and fill gaps in your subject protection.
I analyzed our “High search engines like google and yahoo” article alongside HubSpot’s and it was instantly clear that our weblog has lots of room for enchancment on the subject of subject protection.
Whereas HubSpot scores 77 out of 100, we solely rating 50.
At this level, you’ll be able to undergo the person subjects you’re lacking out on, and begin enriching them.
The “Spotlight” characteristic actually helps right here.
It maps the subject scores to the exact sentences in your weblog, so you already know precisely which elements of your content material to enhance.
You need to give attention to the issues you’ll be able to management and replace swiftly, like on-page search engine optimisation components.
In order that means:
- Reviewing your title tags, and meta descriptions. Despite the fact that they usually get rewritten by Google, throughout testing Google could choose to your model if it drives extra clicks.
- Enhancing alt textual content, schema, and inner hyperlinks
- Including in header tags to extra cleanly construction your article
Final, however under no circumstances least, it is advisable take into consideration the factor that may make customers really need to learn your refreshed content material: info acquire.
Assume: SWIFT—So What’s In It For Them?
Whereas it’s nice to make use of the AI Content material Helper to fill gaps, in case you deal with entities and subject recommendations as only a field to tick, then you definately’re in all probability going to create run-of-the mill, conveyor-belt content material.
Whereas, in case you begin with a hook, quote, piece of information, or principally any distinctive angle, you’ll be able to give attention to framing that info in probably the most fascinating manner, and embody the issues that make folks really need to learn it.
So how will you discover concepts for info acquire subjects?
It actually relies upon the place your viewers is.
It is advisable grasp on the market, and primarily pay attention out for concepts.
For inspiration, I examine discussions taking place in communities like The search engine optimisation Group on Slack, I subscribe to the sorts of newsletters my viewers do, I take heed to related podcasts, search youtube video transcripts, do Google website: searches to search out our personal inner information or insights to repurpose.
There are such a lot of methods to search out fascinating new or unseen info!
When you’ve up to date your content material, re-distribute it to wring as a lot worth out of the republished content material as potential.
Then examine whether or not your updates labored. I take advantage of a mix of Website Explorer, Content material Modifications, and Internet Analytics for this.
For instance, a submit I up to date about “On-page search engine optimisation” noticed a 36% uplift in natural visitors in response to Website Explorer.
Lastly, deal with fast updates as ongoing exams.
Re-run the AI Content material Helper stories on beforehand up to date content material to identify new subject gaps.
The wonderful thing about fast updates is that visibility bumps compound over time with small enhancements.
Ultimate ideas
Content material updates are about greater than chasing visibility—they’re about preserving your model related, correct, and price returning to.
Give attention to the pages that matter, make significant enhancements, and keep in mind that recent content material is as a lot to your readers as it’s for the algorithms.
