Chapter 12 — Quiz

Twenty-four self-check questions: sixteen multiple choice, then eight short answer. Answer them before you open the key at the bottom. This quiz tests whether you can diagnose decay, audit a library, make the four decisions, resolve cannibalization, judge freshness honestly, and clean up after a delete.

Part 1 — Multiple choice

Q1. Content decay most often means: - A. Google penalized the page - B. The gradual loss of a page's search traffic after it peaked, usually not a penalty - C. The page was deindexed for spam - D. The server returned a 500 error

Q2. A page still ranks #3 but its clicks fell over the year. The most likely cause is: - A. A ranking drop - B. SERP erosion — the same position now yields fewer clicks (AI Overview, snippet, more ads) - C. A manual action - D. A slow server

Q3. To tell a ranking drop apart from a same-position click drop, you compare, over time: - A. Bounce rate and time on page - B. Average position and CTR in the Search Console Performance report - C. Domain Authority and referring domains - D. Word count and keyword density

Q4. A content audit scores each URL on four axes. They are: - A. Word count, keyword density, images, length - B. Traffic, rankings, conversions, and quality - C. Age, author, category, tags - D. Title, meta, H1, and URL

Q5. A page has near-zero traffic but four genuine backlinks. The safest verdict is: - A. Delete and 404 it — traffic is what matters - B. Not an automatic delete — its links are earned equity; keep/update or 301 to a relevant target - C. Redirect it to the homepage - D. Noindex it immediately

Q6. The four content-audit decisions are: - A. Publish, promote, repeat, archive - B. Keep, update, merge, delete - C. Rank, index, crawl, serve - D. Write, edit, schedule, share

Q7. You send a page to merge rather than delete when: - A. It is under 500 words - B. There is a better page on your own site covering the same intent - C. It has any backlinks - D. It hasn't been updated in a year

Q8. The honest mechanism by which pruning a bloated site can raise traffic is: - A. Google rewards you for deleting pages - B. Site-wide quality rises, attention/authority concentrates on survivors, and cannibalization resolves - C. Fewer pages means faster crawling, which is a ranking factor - D. Deletion refreshes the whole domain

Q9. "Delete the bottom 20% of pages for a ranking boost" is: - A. Confirmed Google guidance - B. Folklore — pruning helps by removing genuine dead weight, not as a mechanical lever; Google cautions deletion isn't a ranking tactic - C. Required after every core update - D. The only way to recover from Panda

Q10. Historical optimization is: - A. Studying old algorithm updates - B. Systematically improving and re-publishing existing content instead of always creating new - C. Restoring deleted pages from backups - D. Changing publish dates to look current

Q11. A good place to find high-leverage update candidates in Search Console is: - A. Pages already ranking #1 - B. "Striking distance" pages ranking roughly positions 5–20 for real-volume queries - C. Pages with zero impressions - D. The 404 report

Q12. Keyword cannibalization is: - A. Any two pages that use the same keyword - B. Two or more of your pages competing for the same intent so that they undercut each other - C. A competitor outranking you - D. Google indexing your page twice

Q13. Two pages on your site both mention "furnace," but only one gets impressions for furnace queries and it ranks well. This is: - A. Cannibalization — merge them immediately - B. Not a problem — Google chose the right page; the overlap is harmless - C. A duplicate-content penalty - D. A reason to noindex the second page

Q14. Freshness as a ranking signal is best described as: - A. A universal ranking factor for all queries - B. Real but strongly query-dependent — strong for time-sensitive queries, weak/absent for evergreen ones - C. Triggered by changing the published date - D. Irrelevant to Google

Q15. When you delete a page and there is no relevant destination, the correct handling is: - A. 301-redirect it to the homepage - B. Let it return 404 or 410 (410 signals intentional, permanent removal) - C. Leave it live but empty - D. 302-redirect it to a random page

Q16. Redirecting a deleted page to an unrelated page (e.g., the homepage) usually results in: - A. Full link equity transfer - B. A soft 404 — Google treats it like a 404, so no equity transfers and users land somewhere useless - C. A ranking boost for the homepage - D. A manual action

Part 2 — Short answer

Q17. Name the two broad explanations for "a page lost traffic," and the metric comparison that distinguishes them.

Q18. Give three causes of content decay, and label the one that is not the page getting worse.

Q19. State the honest mechanism by which pruning can raise total traffic — and one way the same action loses traffic.

Q20. In one sentence each: what can historical optimization do, and what can it not rescue?

Q21. Distinguish real cannibalization from harmless keyword overlap in one sentence, and name the usually-best fix when it is real.

Q22. Explain why changing a page's date without changing its content earns no freshness benefit — and why it can actually hurt.

Q23. Give the three pre-deletion checks the chapter recommends before you remove a page.

Q24. A furnace page loses traffic every spring. Why is deleting it a mistake, and what comparison settles the question?

Answer key (try every question first) **Part 1 — Multiple choice** 1. **B** — Gradual traffic loss after a peak; usually competitors, staleness, or SERP change, not a penalty. 2. **B** — Same position, fewer clicks = SERP erosion (AI Overview, featured snippet, more ads), not a ranking loss. 3. **B** — Average position vs. CTR over time in the Performance report; position held + CTR fell = erosion. 4. **B** — Traffic, rankings, conversions, quality (plus backlinks and indexation as the two saving columns). 5. **B** — Backlinks are earned equity; don't 404 them away. Keep/update, or 301 to a relevant target. 6. **B** — Keep, update, merge, delete. 7. **B** — Merge when a better page on your own site already covers the same intent. 8. **B** — Site-wide quality rises, attention/authority concentrates, cannibalization resolves. Not a reward for deleting. 9. **B** — Folklore; the gain is from removing real dead weight, and Google's Search Relations has cautioned deletion isn't itself a ranking tactic. 10. **B** — Improving and re-publishing existing content instead of always writing new. 11. **B** — Striking-distance pages (~positions 5–20) with real volume are the highest-leverage updates. 12. **B** — Two or more of your pages competing for the *same intent* and undercutting each other. 13. **B** — Not a problem: Google chose the right page; overlap alone isn't cannibalization. 14. **B** — Real but query-dependent; strong for time-sensitive queries, weak or absent for evergreen. 15. **B** — Let it 404/410; 410 signals intentional, permanent removal. Don't force an irrelevant redirect. 16. **B** — A soft 404: no equity transfers and the user is dumped somewhere irrelevant. **Part 2 — Short answer** 17. A **ranking drop** (position genuinely fell) or a **same-position click drop / SERP erosion** (position held, the results page took clicks). Distinguish them by comparing **average position** and **CTR** over time in Search Console. 18. Any three of: competitors improved; information went stale; intent shifted; SERP erosion; a core/Helpful Content reassessment; technical decay. **SERP erosion** is the one where the page didn't get worse — the results page changed around it. (Seasonality is not decay at all.) 19. **Mechanism:** removing genuine dead weight raises the *site-wide* quality signal (Panda / Helpful Content), concentrates crawling and internal authority on survivors, and resolves cannibalization. **Loses traffic when:** you delete pages with real traffic or backlinks, or redirect removed pages to an irrelevant target (a soft 404 that transfers nothing). 20. **Can do:** lift a page that already has equity (indexation, age, links, some ranking) faster and cheaper than a new page, by genuinely improving it. **Cannot rescue:** a page with no underlying merit or demand, or beat a much stronger competitor by tweaking. 21. Harmless overlap is two pages merely using the same word; **real cannibalization** is two of your pages targeting the *same intent* and both underperforming because Google can't choose. Usually-best fix: **merge/consolidate** and 301 the loser into the survivor. 22. Google evaluates whether the *content* meaningfully changed, not the timestamp, so a bare date change earns nothing; and displaying "updated" on unchanged content is deceptive to users, eroding trust (the T in E-E-A-T). 23. (1) Does it have **backlinks** worth preserving? (2) Does it have **residual traffic or conversions**? (3) Is there a **relevant redirect target** (301) — or should it cleanly 404/410? 24. Its traffic is **seasonal**, not decaying; deleting it in spring throws away an autumn earner. Settle it by comparing the page **year-over-year**, not month-over-month.