Playbook: a content prune audit that decides keep / merge / kill

Playbook: a content prune audit that decides keep / merge / kill
I ran this on a real 400-page blog using Screaming Frog + GSC + Ahrefs together. One tool alone gives you half the picture.

The decision flow:
— Crawl with Screaming Frog, connect the GSC and Analytics APIs so every URL gets clicks + impressions inline.
— Pull last-12-months clicks. Zero clicks AND zero impressions for 12 months = kill candidate.
— Impressions but no clicks = title/intent problem, not a kill. Tag 'refresh'.
— Two URLs ranking for the same query (cannibalization) = merge into the stronger one, 301 the loser.
— Check Ahrefs for referring domains before deleting — a dead page with 5 links gets redirected, not 404'd.

Screaming Frog:
➕ The GSC+GA join in one crawl is the whole trick
➖ Desktop app, eats RAM on big sites
Ahrefs / GSC:
➕ Free link + query layer Frog can't give you
➖ Manual cross-referencing

Best for: the join lives in Screaming Frog; nothing else does it as cheaply.
Price-vs-value: Frog's flat annual fee beats per-credit crawlers for this job.
Pick this if your blog is bloated. Skip if you're under 50 pages.