Marketing leaders have a simple question and a messy spreadsheet: Should the next dollar fund a brand‑new article—or update one you already own? The answer isn’t philosophical. It’s math. And when you run the numbers correctly—factoring decay, re‑crawl mechanics, and redirect hygiene—content refreshes often beat net‑new on speed‑to‑impact and cost‑per‑qualified‑visit.

What the Data Actually Says

If you need a headline stat, start here: when HubSpot began “historical optimization”—systematically refreshing older posts—the company increased monthly organic views on updated content by 106% and tripled monthly leads from those posts. That’s not an outlier. Siege Media’s 2025 data study of 17,749 SERPs found that top results tend to show an update within ~2 years, with high‑intent “best software” queries turning over far faster—median refresh cycles near 143 days.2 And while new content is essential for net‑new keywords, only ~1.7% of newly published pages reach Google’s top 10 within a year—a sobering base rate for teams betting solely on fresh posts to hit quarterly targets.

Case studies echo the theme. Retailer EarthKind saw a 268% surge in organic clicks to a key page after a structured refresh—without a net‑new article.4 At the micro level, “freshness” signals can also lift click‑through: in controlled tests, adding the current month and year to titles delivered a 5% uplift in organic sessions for a listings site, while superficial “last modified” labels, absent real content changes, produced inconclusive or negative results.

Why Refreshes Work (When Done Right)

Google’s ranking systems explicitly include “query deserves freshness”—mechanisms that show newer content where recency matters, and ignore it where it doesn’t. Two implications follow:

1. Update depth matters. Google’s own guidance: only change the visible date if the page was significantly updated, and reflect that in dateModified alongside the on‑page “Updated” label.7 Cosmetic stunts will backfire; experiments show that date tweaks without real improvements can depress traffic.
   
   
2. Speed‑to‑impact favors existing URLs. You can nudge re‑crawl by requesting indexing and by maintaining a clean XML sitemap with accurate lastmod so Google knows which important pages changed.9,10 New URLs, by contrast, face the twin headwinds of crawl discovery and a lower likelihood of near‑term top‑10 rankings.
   
   

Diagnose Content Decay Before You Prescribe

“Content decay” is the slow decline in rankings, impressions, and clicks as information stales, competitors leapfrog you, or SERP features crowd you out. The remedy isn’t always “write more.” It’s to profile decay by cause and scope your fix accordingly:

• Intent drift — The SERP now prefers updated comparisons, pricing, or 2025 models. Solution: expand sections, refresh screenshots, re‑map headings to match current top‑result patterns.
  
  
• Evidence rot — Outdated stats and broken external links. Solution: swap in current sources; add tables or visuals that answer at a glance.
  
  
• Thin coverage — You’re being outrun on depth. Solution: add FAQs, calculators, or step‑by‑steps—features that capture long‑tail queries and promote snippet wins. Test changes; not all rich‑result tactics still pay post.
  
  

Delta‑Update Tactics That Move the Needle

Treat refreshes as surgical sprints, not rewrites from scratch:

• Title & snippet optimization. Test “freshness cues” (month/year) only when recency is a decision factor (jobs, listings, deals). Expect modest—but compounding—CTR lifts.5 Be aware that Google rewrites a large share of titles; write concise, descriptive titles to reduce rewrites and preserve message control.
  
  
• Dates with integrity. Show “Published” and “Updated” consistently; reserve “Updated” for meaningful changes and mirror it in structured data (datePublished / dateModified).
  
  
• Re‑indexing hygiene. After substantial edits, request indexing and ensure sitemaps reflect true change times (lastmod). This helps recrawl the pages that matter now.
  
  
• Module adds, not wall‑to‑wall rewrites. Frequently, adding one comparison table, a pricing explainer, or a troubleshooting section unlocks the win—what we call delta‑updates. In A/B programs, these micro‑changes routinely deliver 3–10% gains with far less risk than wholesale rewrites.
  
  

Redirect Hygiene When You Consolidate

Sometimes refreshes aren’t enough—you need to merge overlapping URLs (the classic “two mediocre posts about the same thing”). Do it cleanly:

• 301s for permanent consolidation and keep them in place “as long as possible,” at least one year, so signals transfer and third‑party links catch up.
  
  
• Canonical alignment. Point canonicals to the surviving URL; update internal links to avoid hopping through 3XX chains, which controlled tests have shown can waste crawl and depress performance.19
  
  
• Change‑of‑address discipline (for domain moves). Pair redirects with Search Console’s tool; expect signal consolidation over months, not days.
  
  

The Break‑Even Math (Simple, Practical)

Use this rule of thumb for each candidate URL:

• Incremental value = (Projected incremental organic sessions after refresh) × (Target page CVR to your next step) × (Lead or order value).
  
  
• Refresh payback (in weeks) = Refresh cost ÷ (Incremental value per week).
  
  
• Compare to net‑new: Model conservative discovery (3–6 months to meaningful traffic for most sites) and lower near‑term rank odds for new URLs.
  
  

If the refresh yields ≥50% of the value of a net‑new plan but in ≤25% of the time (typical when you already rank on page 2–3), pick the refresh. If the topic universe is missing from your site, or the SERP has decisively shifted intent away from your current angle, go net‑new and build for that intent.