9 Posts to Cut, Keep, or Merge (Content Audit Template)
A content audit template is a spreadsheet that lists every post next to its search data and one verdict: cut, keep, or merge. Most templates were built for big marketing teams. This one is built for a Shopify blog, where pruning brings the fastest wins. Below are the 9 post types in almost every blog and my call on each.
Key Points
| Verdict | Rule |
|---|---|
| Cut | Under 10 clicks in the last 12 months, no keyword of its own, and no page that needs it. Redirect it to the closest related page. |
| Keep | It ranks for its own keyword or it earns sales. Refresh it, do not rewrite it. |
| Merge | Two or more URLs share one keyword or answer one question. Fold the weaker into the stronger and 301 the old URL. |
1. The Zero-Click Post With Impressions
Open the Performance report in Google Search Console, filter pages to your blog path, and sort by impressions. Near the top you will find a post that Google shows for a real query thousands of times a month while almost nobody clicks it. The ranking is already there. The title is what is losing the click.
Before you judge this post, build the sheet. Every row is one URL, and these are the columns:
- URL
- Clicks and impressions, last 12 months (Google Search Console)
- Average position
- Primary keyword (the top query in the Queries tab for that page)
- Intent (buy, compare, learn, or none)
- Inlinks (how many of your own pages link to it)
- Verdict (cut, keep, or merge) plus one line on why
Verdict: keep. Rewrite the title tag and H1 to match the top query in the words shoppers type, and leave the URL alone. Check the click-through rate again in 30 days, since this is the cheapest gain in the whole audit.
2. Two Posts Splitting One Keyword
Sort the sheet by primary keyword and look for duplicates. When two posts share the same keyword, Google swaps them in and out of the results, and both sit lower than either would alone. This is the most common problem I find in Shopify blogs, and it usually comes from working off a keyword list instead of topic clusters built for ecommerce.
Verdict: merge. Keep the URL with more clicks and more inlinks, move any useful paragraphs from the weaker post into it, and 301 the weaker URL to the winner. Google treats a permanent redirect as a signal that the target should be the one it ranks, so the history of the old page carries over.
The way to stop this from happening again is to plan posts in clusters. One post owns one keyword, and every related question gets its own post that links back to it. One keyword, one URL is the rule for the whole sheet.
3. The Dated “Best X 2023” Post
The dated “Best X 2023” post is one every store has: “Best Gifts for Runners 2023” or “Top Skincare Trends 2024.” The year in the title made it feel timely when it went out, and now the year makes it look abandoned. Worse, if the year is in the slug, you cannot update it without changing the URL.
Verdict: keep and refresh if it still gets clicks, merge if you have more than one year of the same list. Update the products, the prices, and the year in the title, and move the URL to a dateless slug like /blogs/news/gifts-for-runners with a 301 from the old one. If you have a 2023 and a 2024 version, fold both into that one dateless URL.
Do not just swap the year and republish. Google’s own guidance on helpful content asks whether you are changing the date on a page to make it seem fresh when nothing has changed. Refresh the products, not the date.
4. The Post That Ranks but for the Wrong Intent
Look at the primary keyword next to the intent column. Sometimes a post ranks well for a query that will never lead to a sale. A post about “how to wholesale candles” pulling in people who want to sell candles, not buy them, is a common example.
Verdict: keep and rewrite if the query has buying intent hiding in it, cut if it does not. Most of the queries worth keeping are the longer, more specific ones, which is why I favor long-tail keywords over short-tail keywords for store blogs. A short keyword with the wrong intent is the one to let go.
Traffic with no product path is a cost, not a win. It slows your site, fills your analytics with people who bounce, and tempts you to write more of the same.
5. The Thin Post Under 500 Words
Add a word count column if you have a crawler, or just open the short ones. Posts under 500 words that answer a question in two paragraphs and then stop rarely rank, because a competitor has a fuller answer. Many came from a batch of quick AI posts published to keep the blog active, and the tool is not the problem, as I explain in is AI content bad for SEO.
Verdict: merge when a fuller post on the same topic exists, cut when it does not and the post has no clicks. Only keep a short post if it ranks for a specific question and the answer is complete. A short post that fully answers “does this ship to Canada” is fine at 300 words.
Merging five thin posts into one complete guide usually outranks all five within a few months. Thin is the problem, whoever wrote it.
6. The Post Outranked by Your Own Collection Page
Search your keyword and see which of your URLs Google shows. If a blog post targets “linen bedding” and your linen bedding collection ranks above it, or right beside it, the post is competing with the page that actually sells the product. That is the collection page vs blog post split gone wrong: collections take buying keywords, posts take questions.
The collection wins, every time. Redirect the post to the collection page, and move any useful buying advice into the collection’s description. The collection can sell; the post can only recommend.
The exception is a post that answers a question the collection cannot, like “how to wash linen sheets.” Re-angle it to that question, remove the product-list framing, and link it up to the collection. Now the two pages support each other instead of fighting for one spot.
7. The Orphaned Post With No Internal Links
The orphaned post with no internal links shows up as a zero in the inlinks column, and a post with zero links from your other pages is only reachable from the blog feed, so once it falls off page one of that feed, Google has almost no reason to crawl it. Shopify blogs create orphans by default because the theme never links posts to each other.
Verdict: keep, then add three links to it from related posts and one from the collection it supports. If you cannot find a single page that should link to it, that is your answer, and the post moves to the cut column. Orphaned posts are one of the quieter reasons a Shopify store is not ranking even when the content is decent.
Every keeper needs three inlinks. Write that number into the sheet as a target, and treat any row below it as unfinished.
8. The Evergreen Winner That Needs a Refresh
This is the post that has brought steady clicks for two years and has slipped a few positions in the last six months. Nothing is wrong with it, but competitors have caught up and some details have aged. It is your most valuable row, and the one most stores ignore because it “still works.”
Verdict: keep, and refresh it before anything else in the audit. A refresh means:
- Update any product, price, or stat that has changed
- Answer the two or three new questions in the Queries tab it does not cover yet
- Tighten the intro so the answer comes first
- Add a link to the newest related post and the collection it supports
- Change the published date only if the content genuinely changed
Refresh the winner first. Ten percent more traffic on your best post is worth more than a new post that starts from zero, and it takes an hour instead of a day.
9. The Post With Traffic but No Sales
Sort by clicks, then look at the sales column in Shopify’s analytics or your assisted conversions in GA4. You will find a post with real traffic and nothing to show for it, often because it was written for a query that brings visits rather than one of the keywords that drive sales. Usually the post answers the question well and then ends, with no product mentioned and no next step.
Verdict: keep, and fix the path to a product. Add a short recommendation with a link to the collection or product that solves the problem the post describes, placed where the reader has just learned they need it. Answer, then recommend, then link.
If the traffic is from a query with no buying intent at all, treat it like post 4 and let it go. The posts worth keeping earn a sale, not just a visit.
Run the Audit Before You Write Another Post
Build the sheet, fill in the columns from Google Search Console, and give every post one verdict. Merge the pairs splitting one keyword, cut the posts your collections already outrank, refresh the winners, and link the orphans. Most Shopify blogs I audit come out of this with a third fewer posts and more traffic within 90 days.
If you would rather hand the sheet to someone who does this every week, I run content audits as part of my ecommerce SEO services for Shopify stores. You get the sheet, the verdicts, and the redirects ready to paste into Shopify’s URL redirects tool.
