Key takeaways: Content audits often stall
when marketers ask busy experts to review entire articles. By screening legacy
content first and identifying technical points for experts to verify, marketing
teams can limit review time and correct outdated information before it misleads
buyers.
Outdated technical content creates problems beyond declining search traffic. Old specs find their way into sales proposals, buyers encounter conflicting product information, and obsolete regulatory references raise compliance concerns. AI assistants add another complication when they cite outdated pages and present obsolete information as current.
One step can bring a B2B content audit to a halt.
Here’s how it often happens: Marketing crawls the website, compiles a spreadsheet of legacy URLs and flags 30 technical articles with declining search traffic. Then someone emails the engineering lead or product VP:
“Can you review these pages and tell us what needs updating?”
That’s a lot to ask. There’s no scope, no deadline and no indication of how long the review will take. The expert has other priorities, and two months later, marketing hasn’t made any progress. Meanwhile, the outdated articles remain on the site.
In AI Didn’t Invent Content Audits, we laid out a six-step audit process, including the free Google and Bing reports that track how your pages appear in AI-generated search results. Step 5 — reviewing the content with subject experts — is where audits often stall.
When an audit stalls this way, the problem often starts with how marketing requests the review. Asking experts to handle editorial work takes time away from their primary responsibilities.
Why asking experts to review entire articles backfires
Asking an engineer, product manager or partner to “read and edit” an old blog post creates immediate friction.
Technical leaders spend their days solving operational problems, building products and working directly with clients. Reviewing several old articles adds another substantial task. And without clear instructions, they may spend time rewriting sentences or questioning the layout when marketing only needs them to verify technical information.
Without a clear scope, a request to “review five legacy articles” leaves experts guessing how much time they’ll need. And when content reviews repeatedly interfere with their other responsibilities, securing their help on future projects becomes another challenge for marketing.
Screen legacy content before involving experts
Marketing starts by screening the content library to determine which pages need attention. Experts then review the technical content that marketing can’t verify independently.
Run these three basic filters before asking anyone outside marketing to review a dated asset:
- Search and AI visibility: Check Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, including their AI performance reports, to identify pages with little search or AI activity. Review website analytics for traffic trends. Pages with few clicks can still appear in AI-generated answers, so consider search performance, AI visibility and business relevance before deciding whether to retire them.
- Commercial relevance: Check your current product lineup and service offerings. If a page covers a retired software version or a discontinued service, check whether existing customers still need the information before redirecting or removing it.
- Obvious issues: Look for broken links, outdated employee bios and past event dates that marketing can fix independently. Flag regulatory and compliance references for technical or legal review. Changes in regulations may affect the recommendations on the page.
Separate the content into these three groups:
- Retire: Remove pages that don’t serve business or customer needs and show little search, referral or AI visibility. Use a 301 redirect when a relevant replacement exists or return a 404 or 410 status code when it doesn’t. Consolidate duplicate pages, preserving useful information and redirecting the old URLs.
- Marketing update: Refresh the layout, fix broken links and update routine information, such as event dates and employee titles, without involving technical experts.
- Technical verification: Reserve this group for pages where technical information, diagrams or recommendations require fact-checking. Prioritize business risk before traffic. Even a low-traffic page with an incorrect spec, outdated price or obsolete regulatory reference could influence a buyer’s decision or appear in an AI-generated answer.
Our earlier audit process calls for marketers to keep, update, consolidate or retire each page. This screening step divides the “update” category into two groups: what marketing can handle and what needs an expert.
Assign a content strategist or editorial lead to oversee the screening process. We recommend quarterly reviews for product, pricing, regulatory and leadership content and annual reviews for stable evergreen pages. Review retirement decisions before removing pages, and spot-check marketing updates each quarter for information that requires expert review.
Ask experts to verify specific information
For articles that require technical verification, identify the details experts need to check and develop specific questions for each one.
Look for content that requires an expert’s judgment, including specifications, product recommendations, technical comparisons, regulatory references and statements about best practices. Include diagrams that explain how a product or process works.
For example, an infrastructure architect might receive this hypothetical question about a legacy fiber backbone guide:
“In 2023, our guide recommended multimode fiber for 100G links inside the data center. Is that still our baseline, or are clients moving straight to single-mode for new builds?”
Straightforward questions often take only a quick email or chat message.
Keep verification requests manageable. If you have numerous questions, break them into smaller batches based on the expert’s preferences and availability. Ask experts to mark each item “Still accurate,” “Changed” or “Not sure.” For changes, request the correct information. If they’re unsure, ask who can verify it. Include a deadline.
Not every answer will be a clean yes or no. If an expert responds with “It depends” or “Partly,” schedule a brief follow-up conversation to understand the conditions or exceptions before revising the copy.
Our two-touchpoint content workflow follows a similar approach. Experts share their knowledge during a focused interview and review the finished draft for accuracy, while marketing handles writing and editing. The same division of responsibilities applies to updating legacy content.
Publish the updates and check the results
After the expert verifies the technical points, revise the copy, update relevant metadata and republish the article. Then send the expert a link to the updated page with a short thank-you note:
“Thanks for confirming the change on the fiber specifications. We updated the backbone guide and published the new version here.”
Monitor the article’s performance for 60 to 90 days after publication. Review search impressions, clicks, engagement and relevant conversions. Check AI visibility reports for citation trends and review tracked AI answers for the corrected information. Compare results with the period before the update, but don’t assume the content changes caused every performance improvement.
Share the results with the expert, including examples of corrected information in search or AI-generated answers. Seeing what marketing accomplished with their input gives experts a reason to participate in future reviews.
If your last content audit stalled while waiting for expert reviews, try this approach with your next batch of legacy content. Give experts a manageable assignment, and keep the writing and editing with marketing.
Frequently asked questions
Screen pages for search performance, AI visibility and business relevance first. Ask experts to verify only the technical points that need their attention.
Prioritize technical specifications, product recommendations, diagrams and regulatory references that require expert verification.
Update outdated but relevant pages, consolidate duplicate content and retire pages that don’t serve business or customer needs.
Send specific questions in a manageable batch, provide simple response options and set a deadline. Let marketing handle the writing and editing.
Track search impressions, clicks, engagement and conversions for 60 to 90 days.