Dead Pages Report
A "dead page" is one that used to bring in search traffic but has completely stopped getting clicks. These pages once provided value to visitors, so understanding why they died can reveal problems worth fixing.
The Dead Pages report surfaces these pages automatically so you don't have to manually dig through hundreds of URLs looking for ones that went silent.
How the report works
The report identifies pages that meet both of these conditions:
- Zero clicks in the last 30 days - the page is getting no search traffic at all
- More than 10 clicks in the previous 30 days (days 30-59) - the page was genuinely getting traffic before, not just a random impression or two
For each dead page, the report shows:
- Last click date: When the page last received a click from search
- Peak clicks: The highest click count the page achieved in its historical period
The report is sorted by peak clicks, so the pages that lost the most traffic appear first. A page that used to get 200 clicks is a bigger priority than one that got 15.
Your page "/blog/remote-work-tools-2024" had 85 clicks last month but 0 clicks this month. It appears in the Dead Pages report with peak clicks of 120 (its best month) and a last click date of February 18.
Why do pages die?
| Cause | How to check |
|---|---|
| Page removed or broken (404) | Visit the URL directly. Check Google Search Console for crawl errors on this page |
| Content became irrelevant | Does the topic have an expiration date? "Best tools of 2024" naturally loses relevance |
| Competitors overtook you | Search for the keywords this page targeted. See who's ranking now and what they offer |
| De-indexed by Google | Search site:yourdomain.com/page-url in Google. If it doesn't appear, it's been de-indexed |
| Internal linking removed | Check if a redesign or content change removed links that used to point to this page |
| Noindex tag added | View page source and check for <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> |
| Canonical pointing elsewhere | Check if a canonical tag is sending Google to a different page |
What to do with dead pages
Once you've identified why a page died, choose the right action:
- Revive it: If the content is still relevant but outdated, update it with fresh information, current data, and improved structure. This often works surprisingly well
- Redirect it: If the page is no longer needed, 301 redirect it to a related page. This preserves any backlink authority and sends visitors to useful content
- Fix technical issues: If the page is returning a 404, has a noindex tag, or has crawl issues, fix the technical problem. Traffic may recover quickly
- Remove it cleanly: If the content is truly irrelevant and there's no good redirect target, remove the page and return a proper 410 (Gone) status code