"Evergreen content earns passively forever" — measured decay says it doesn't

"Evergreen content earns passively forever" — measured decay says it doesn't

The passive-income promise of evergreen content overstates durability and ignores observed earnings decay.

Context. "Evergreen" describes topic relevance, not traffic permanence. Search rankings, recommendation cycles, and competitive entry all erode a piece's reach over time.

Findings. Content-decay studies of search-driven properties show a recurring pattern: pages that aren't refreshed lose a meaningful share of clicks and impressions within 12–24 months as competitors publish, intent shifts, and algorithms re-rank. Affiliate and ad revenue tracks that decline. The income isn't passive — it's maintained, requiring periodic refresh to hold position. Unmaintained "evergreen" libraries reliably depreciate.

Caveats. Decay rates vary widely by topic stability — reference content on settled subjects decays slowly, anything tied to tools, prices, or rankings decays fast. The decay data comes mostly from search traffic and may not generalize to recommendation-fed platforms.

Implication. Evergreen content is a depreciating asset with a maintenance cost, not an annuity. Budget refresh labor against it.

What we still don't know: standardized decay curves by content category don't exist publicly, so depreciation rates are estimated per-site.