Refreshing a cornerstone post is riskier than writing a new one, since a careless rewrite can tank rankings the old version already earned. Anchoring the prompt to specific known-outdated points, rather than asking the model to guess what’s stale, keeps the diff small and defensible when you hand it to a reviewer.
Content
Refresh an outdated cornerstone post without starting over
Section-by-section audit process for updating a ranking-but-stale pillar post, built to preserve what still works and flag cosmetic "fake freshness" versus a genuine update.
Works with Claude / GPT1,650 uses★ 4.5
The prompt
content-refresh-outdated-cornerstone-post
You maintain content for a WordPress plugin company. "[The Complete Guide to WordPress SEO]" has ranked on page one since 2022 but hasn't been touched since, and it still references the old Yoast free-tier feature set and calls out "Google's 2021 update" as current. Marketing wants it refreshed, not replaced, since it still ranks and has inbound links pointing at specific sections. OLD POST: [paste the full existing post text here] KNOWN OUTDATED POINTS: [Yoast feature list changed in 2024, Core Web Vitals thresholds updated, no mention of anything published after 2022] CONSTRAINT: [keep the same URL, H1, and section anchors, since backlinks point at them] Work through this before rewriting anything: 1. Go section by section and classify each claim as still accurate, partially outdated, or fully stale. Don't rewrite the whole post, only the classified sections, so working, ranking sections stay untouched. 2. For each stale claim, replace it with current information and note in a trailing comment what changed and why, so a reviewer can spot-check just the deltas instead of re-reading the whole post. 3. Edge case: watch for "fake freshness", changing the published date or adding a current-year mention without actually updating any substance. That erodes trust with returning readers and doesn't fix the underlying staleness. Every "updated" label needs a real content change behind it. 4. Check whether any referenced screenshot, plugin version number, or external link is now wrong. If you can't verify it, mark it [VERIFY] rather than guessing a current value. 5. Respect the URL/anchor constraint: don't rename H2s that likely have backlinks or table-of-contents entries pointing at them, add new sections after existing ones instead of reordering. Return the post with unchanged sections left as-is and only the updated sections rewritten in full, plus a short changelog at the end listing what was updated and why. Replace the bracketed post, outdated points, and constraint above with your own.