If your website has been around for more than a year, there is content on it right now that is actively hurting your search rankings. Broken links, thin pages, duplicate content, missing meta descriptions — these are silent killers that accumulate over time and tell Google your site is not worth sending traffic to. In this episode, Mark walks through a complete site content audit process that you can follow step by step to clean up your site and start recovering lost rankings.<\/p>\n
Mark opens with some background on how helping friends launch affiliate websites — including a pharmacist building HelpfulPharmacist.com<\/strong> and his wife's blog at BallCapMom.com<\/strong> — led him to recognize the need for a structured approach to website maintenance. A listener named Chris asked specifically about content auditing after binge-listening to all 101 previous episodes, and that request became the focus of this episode.<\/p>\n The first and most accessible audit task is checking for broken links<\/strong>. Mark recommends using an external link checker rather than relying solely on WordPress plugins. On Mac, he uses a free tool called Integrity that crawls every link on your site and flags the dead ones. The key insight here is that link rot — accumulated broken links from old posts and comments — signals to Google that you are not maintaining your site. Google sees this as a trust issue and will reduce your rankings accordingly.<\/p>\n Next, Mark addresses duplicate content<\/strong>, specifically the kind that WordPress creates internally. Category pages and archive pages often display the same content as individual posts, creating duplicate content signals. The fix is straightforward: use the Yoast SEO plugin to no-index category and archive pages so Google does not treat them as competing content. He also warns against the common local SEO mistake of creating nearly identical landing pages for different cities with only the city name changed.<\/p>\n The third audit step is going back through your content and making sure every important page gets a green light from Yoast SEO<\/strong>. This means properly targeting keywords, writing compelling meta descriptions, and completing all on-page SEO elements. Mark points out that even if your ranking does not change, improving your meta description can dramatically increase click-through rates from search results.<\/p>\n Mark also recommends ensuring important content is at least 1,000 words long<\/strong>, and strongly suggests no-indexing any pages under 500 words that are not bringing in search traffic. Fewer thin pages in Google's index means Google trusts your remaining content more.<\/p>\n For off-page auditing, Mark recommends using Google Search Console<\/strong> to check for site health issues and Ahrefs<\/strong> to evaluate your backlink profile. If you experimented with link building services in the past, you may have spammy backlinks that need to be disavowed. He also explains anchor text diversity — if too many of your inbound links use the exact same keyword anchor text, Google sees that as manipulation.<\/p>\n Finally, Mark covers site speed<\/strong> as a ranking factor. He recommends caching plugins like WP Super Cache, image compression with WP Smush, and CDN services like Cloudflare to improve load times. Slow sites increase bounce rates, and Google factors that into rankings.<\/p>\n Mark recorded this episode in 2016, and site content audits have become significantly more comprehensive since then. The fundamentals Mark covers — broken links, duplicate content, on-page SEO, backlink health, and site speed — remain essential, but the tools and standards have evolved substantially.<\/p>\n Google's Core Web Vitals<\/strong> now represent the primary site speed metrics that matter for rankings. Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift have replaced older metrics like YSlow scores. These are measurable in Google Search Console and tools like PageSpeed Insights, and they directly influence how Google ranks your pages.<\/p>\n E-E-A-T signals<\/strong> (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) have become central to how Google evaluates content quality. A modern content audit needs to assess whether your pages demonstrate real-world experience and whether author credentials are clearly displayed. This matters especially in YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) niches.<\/p>\n AI visibility<\/strong> is the newest consideration. With Google's AI Overviews and tools like ChatGPT pulling information from web content, auditing for structured data, clear answers to common questions, and proper schema markup has become part of a thorough content audit. Content that is well-structured and factually clear is more likely to be surfaced by AI systems.<\/p>\n The tooling has matured as well. Screaming Frog<\/strong> has become the industry standard for technical site audits, crawling sites and flagging broken links, redirect chains, missing meta data, and thin content in a single pass. Ahrefs Content Audit<\/strong> can now identify underperforming pages and suggest consolidation opportunities. Google Search Console has been significantly upgraded with better coverage reports and URL inspection tools.<\/p>\n One important shift: quarterly audits are now recommended<\/strong> rather than annual ones. Google's algorithm updates are more frequent, and content can lose rankings faster if technical issues accumulate. Proactively removing or consolidating thin content improves crawl efficiency and helps your strongest pages rank higher.<\/p>\n If you found this episode helpful, you might also enjoy:<\/p>\n Listen to Late Night Internet Marketing on Apple Podcasts<\/a> or subscribe at latenightim.com\/internet-marketing-podcast\/<\/a>. Have a question for Mark? Call the digital recorder at 214-444-8655 or drop a comment below.<\/p>\nKey Takeaways<\/h2>\n
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