Find sleeper pages in Search Console and refresh them

Why this matters

Compare page-level Search Console clicks with last year to find pages that lost traffic.

Before you start

• Google Search Console access with at least 15 months of page-level data
• Ahrefs account, or another backlink index, for referring domain counts
• Access to the CMS to edit the affected pages

How to apply it

1. Compare page clicks year over year

   Ask an AI SEO tool connected to Search Console to compare clicks per page for the last three months against the same three months a year earlier. Without the tool, open the Search Console Performance report, switch to the Pages tab, set the date range and enable the comparison against the matching period last year.

   Check: The report returns one row per page with clicks for both periods and a delta column.

2. List the ten biggest losers with their lost queries

   Sort the comparison by click change ascending and take the ten pages with the largest loss. For each page, open the Queries tab for that URL to record which queries lost the most clicks.

   Check: A sheet lists ten URLs, each with a click delta and at least one query with a negative click change.

3. Record referring domains per URL General best practice

   For each of the ten URLs, open Ahrefs Site Explorer, paste the full URL, set the mode to Exact URL, open the Backlinks report and read the Referring domains total; export to CSV. Record the count next to each URL so the list can be split by links. The Ahrefs API v3 returns the same number for a batch of URLs.

   Check: Every row in the sheet has a numeric referring-domain count, including zeros.

4. Split the list by link profile

   Mark each URL as either links plus decline (referring domains above zero) or no links plus decline (zero referring domains). Only the first group is a refresh candidate.

   Check: The sheet has two labelled groups and every one of the ten URLs sits in exactly one of them.

5. Refresh the pages that have links

   Rewrite the linked pages properly: update figures, add new examples, cover queries the page lost, and add internal links from related pages. Do not change only the published date.

   Check: A version diff of the page shows new facts, examples or sections, and the visible date change is not the only edit.

6. Re-diagnose the pages without links General best practice

   Treat zero-link decliners as a different problem rather than refreshing them: check search intent, cannibalization with a stronger URL, and whether the topic is still worth targeting.

   Check: No content edit is scheduled for the zero-link group until an intent or cannibalization check is recorded.

7. Request reindexing and measure the same queries General best practice

   General best practice: run URL Inspection on each refreshed URL, request indexing, and re-check the recorded query set after 28 days against the same period last year.

   Check: URL Inspection shows the URL is on Google with a recent crawl date, and the 28-day query comparison shows an updated click delta.

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<report>
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Source: @nicholasdulait on 2026-10-16 · original post · report an error