Find pages and posts that haven't been updated in a long time. Categorize as fresh / aging / stale / archive-candidate. Suggest refresh, redirect, or archive per item — based on age, traffic signal, and internal link count.
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Slash command/stale-content-detector
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Find pages and posts that haven't been updated in a long time. Categorize as fresh / aging / stale / archive-candidate. Suggest refresh, redirect, or archive per item — based on age, traffic signal, and internal link count.
---name: stale-content-detector
description: "Find pages and posts that haven't been updated in a long time. Categorize as fresh / aging / stale / archive-candidate. Suggest refresh, redirect, or archive per item — based on age, traffic signal, and internal link count."
license: MIT
metadata:
author: Respira for WordPress
author_url: https://respira.press
version: 1.0.0
mcp-server: respira-wordpress
category: audit
---# Stale Content Detector
**Version:** 1.0.0
**Updated:** 2026-05-24
**Category:** audit
**Status:** stable
**Requires:** Respira for WordPress plugin 7.1+ + MCP server
---## Description
Find pages and posts that haven't been updated in a long time, categorize them as fresh / aging / stale / archive-candidate, and suggest action per item: refresh, redirect, archive, or leave alone. Stale content is an SEO drag and a credibility tax — if your "2023 trends" article still ranks but nobody's touched it since 2023, you're losing trust the day a reader notices the date.
This skill is intentionally focused. It's not a content audit (use [SEO & AEO Amplifier](https://respira.press/skills/seo-aeo-amplifier) for that). It's the "what's old" question, answered fast.
- `respira_list_posts(per_page=100, status=publish)` for posts
- `respira_list_custom_posts(post_type=<each non-default CPT>, per_page=100)` for any CPT detected via `respira_list_post_types`
Each result includes `modified` and `date`. Sort by `modified` ascending — oldest first.
### Step 3 — Identify evergreen pages
Pull the list of pages and check each against the evergreen list (`/about`, `/contact`, `/pricing`, `/privacy`, `/terms`, `/legal`, `/imprint`, `/faq`, `/support`). If the URL or slug matches, flag as evergreen and skip the staleness check.
Also check if the post type has `has_archive=false` and a single URL pattern matching contact/legal/utility — those are usually evergreen.
### Step 4 — Compute staleness
For each non-evergreen page or post, compute days-since-modified. Bucket:
- 0–180 days → **fresh**
- 181–365 days → **aging**
- 366–730 days → **stale**
- 731+ days → **archive-candidate** (further filtering in Step 5)
For items in the archive-candidate bucket, we need to know if anyone is reading them or linking to them. Two signals:
1. **Internal link count.** Call `respira_find_element` with the page's URL as a search term. Count incoming internal links. If zero, the page is an orphan.
2. **External traffic** (if available — depends on whether the site has Plausible / GA4 / similar wired to Respira). If not available, skip.
### What I'd refresh first (top 5 by traffic or link equity)
1. **{title}** ({days_ago}d old) — {one-line reason: high incoming link count / high traffic / topical relevance to current focus}
2. ...
```
### Step 7 — Offer to act on a chosen item
Ask: *"Want me to refresh one of these now? I can pull the existing content, suggest updates, create a duplicate with the refresh applied, and you review."*
If yes, route to the SEO & AEO Amplifier skill or directly compose `respira_create_page_duplicate` + targeted updates.
---
## Hard rules
- **Never delete a page directly.** Even archive-candidates get a recommendation, not a deletion. The user decides. Use `respira_delete_page` only if the user explicitly asks for deletion of a specific named page.
- **The evergreen list is opinionated but overridable.** Output the list at the top of the report so the user can see what got skipped and add/remove items.
- **Don't conflate stale with bad.** A 2-year-old page that still has 1,000 monthly views is not a problem. The "refresh" recommendation is based on age, not quality.
- **Modified date is canonical.** Don't read `date` (published) as a staleness signal. A 2018 post updated last month is fresh.
- **Custom post types matter.** Case studies, podcast episodes, properties — these often need different staleness windows. If the user runs a podcast and the latest episode is 6 months old, that's stale for podcast content even though "fresh" for blog posts. Offer to set per-CPT windows on a v1.1 of this skill.
---
## Telemetry
Records: site URL hash, n_pages / n_posts / n_custom counted, bucket distribution, success/failure, total duration. No page titles, no URLs, no decisions sent.
