<b>The decay-detection SOP for generated page sets</b>

<b>The decay-detection SOP for generated page sets</b>

pSEO pages rot silently — a data feed goes stale, a competitor refreshes, rankings slide across 5,000 pages at once. Run scheduled detection.

Monthly decay job:
☐ Step 1 — Pull 90-day-over-90-day clicks and impressions per URL pattern, grouped by template. Gate: flag any template losing both metrics by 20%+.
☐ Step 2 — Cross-reference data freshness. Gate: if decay correlates with stale <code>last_verified</code> dates, the fix is the feed, not the copy.
☐ Step 3 — Sample the SERP for 10 decayed pages. Gate: if a SERP feature (AI overview, pack) now owns the query, mark the template for format change, not refresh.
☐ Step 4 — Triage. Refresh data, rewrite the differentiation block, or retire to <code>noindex</code>. Each decayed page gets exactly one disposition.
☐ Step 5 — Re-submit only refreshed pages in the sitemap with an honest <code>lastmod</code>.

Guardrail: track "pages refreshed vs pages decayed" as a rolling ratio. If you're refreshing slower than decay, freeze new generation until you catch up.

Ship gate: don't publish until all boxes are checked.