Google's guidance rewards original, expert, accurate content and warns against fake freshness. A five-question test to give every important page one of three decisions.
Most company websites carry more content than anyone can maintain. Old articles, thin product pages and outdated guides sit beside the pages that actually win business.
The useful question is not “how much should we publish?” It is “which pages deserve to exist, and what does each one need?”
What Google says it rewards
Google’s guidance on helpful, reliable, people-first content gives a clear starting point. It asks whether content provides original information, reporting, research or analysis, and whether it goes beyond the obvious.
It also asks whether content shows first-hand expertise, such as having actually used a product or service. And it encourages accurate authorship information, such as bylines, where readers would expect them.
The same page lists warning signs. They include producing lots of content on many topics in the hope that some performs well, and mainly summarising what others say without adding much value.
What it warns against
Google is direct about two common shortcuts. Its guidance asks whether you are changing the dates on pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed.
It also asks whether you are adding or removing a lot of content mainly because you think it will make your site seem “fresh”. Google’s answer, in brackets on the page, is: “No, it won’t.”
Separately, Google’s spam policies define scaled content abuse. That is when many pages are generated mainly to manipulate search rankings rather than help users, no matter how they are created.
Three decisions, not one
These documents point to a simple conclusion. Every important page needs one of three decisions: add expertise, update it, or retire it.
This is our framework, not Google’s. But each decision maps to a question in Google’s guidance.
Add expertise
Some pages cover the right topic for the right audience but say nothing a competitor could not say. They need what only your company knows.
Signs a page needs expertise: no named author, no examples from your own work, no data, and advice that reads like a summary of other articles. In B2B and professional services, these pages often cover your most commercial topics.
The fix is usually an interview, not a rewrite. Spend 30 minutes with an engineer, consultant or account manager and add what they have seen in real projects.
Update
Other pages were good when published but have drifted. Prices, regulations, product names, screenshots or statistics are now wrong.
Signs a page needs updating: it still attracts visitors or sales use, but facts have changed. Update the substance, then change the date. Doing it in that order matches Google’s guidance on dates.
Retire
Some pages no longer serve anyone. Old event announcements, discontinued products, duplicate articles and posts written only to chase a keyword often belong here.
Retiring does not always mean deleting. If a similar, better page exists, Google’s documentation on redirects explains that a permanent redirect tells Google to show the new target in search results.
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If nothing replaces the page, removing it can be fine. The aim is a site that serves readers, not a smaller site for its own sake. Google’s guidance is explicit that deleting content to look fresh will not help.
Questions to ask about each page
Run each important page through five questions. They are drawn from Google’s guidance and from ordinary business sense.
- Who is it for? Name the reader and the decision they are trying to make.
- What does it add? List anything on the page that comes from your own experience, data or research.
- Is it still true? Check every fact, figure and screenshot against today.
- Does it earn its keep? Look at traffic, sales use, links and conversions together.
- Is there a better page? If so, merge the two and redirect.
A page that fails questions one and two needs expertise or retirement. A page that fails question three needs updating. A page that fails four and five is a retirement candidate.
A worked example
Hypothetical: an Austrian industrial pump manufacturer audits its 600-page site. It finds 80 blog posts from 2019 written by an agency, none naming an engineer.
Twenty cover topics customers still ask about, such as selecting pumps for chemical processing. Those get expertise: engineers add examples, data from installations and their names.
Another 35 contain outdated product codes or regulation references. They get updated, then re-dated.
The remaining 25 are short news items and duplicated keyword pages. Some are merged and redirected; the rest are removed.
The figures here are illustrative. The point is that one audit produces three different kinds of work.
Who should make the call
Content teams should not decide alone. They know traffic, but not always commercial value or technical accuracy.
A good audit panel has three people: someone from content, someone from sales or account management, and a subject expert. Each page gets a decision in a few minutes, with notes for any disagreement.
Legal or compliance should review retirement of pages that customers may rely on, such as terms, safety information or product documentation.
Why this matters for AI discovery too
The same qualities Google describes, original information, clear authorship and accurate facts, are also what make a page easier for AI systems to use as a source.
That is a reasonable inference, not a documented promise. No company can guarantee its content will be cited by any AI system.
What leaders should expect
A content audit is not a one-off clean-up. It is a regular decision about where the content budget goes.
Expect the first audit to take time and to surprise people. Many teams find that a small share of pages does most of the useful work, and that expert input is the scarcest resource.
Plan for that. Book expert time each quarter, and treat it as a production cost, not a favour.
Key takeaways
- Give every important page one of three decisions: add expertise, update the substance, or retire it.
- Google's guidance warns against changing dates without substantial changes and says adding or removing content to look fresh will not help.
- Expert time is usually the scarcest input; book it each quarter as a production cost.
Put it into practice
Pick your ten most commercially important pages and run each through the five questions: who is it for, what does it add, is it still true, does it earn its keep, and is there a better page?
A question for your next leadership meeting
How many of our most important web pages contain information only our own experts could have written?
