Understanding Content Health Scores: A Practical Guide - ContentMK
ContentMK assigns a 0-100 health score to every article. Here's how the scoring works and how to use it to prioritize your content updates.
Every article in ContentMK gets a health score from 0 to 100. It’s a single number that tells you whether a piece of content is in good shape or needs attention. No guessing, no manual audits — just a clear signal you can act on.
Here’s how the scoring actually works.
The Four Factors
Your health score is built from four components, each weighted by importance.
Freshness (40%) — This is the biggest factor. How recently was the article updated? Content that hasn’t been touched in over a year takes a significant hit here. Search engines favor fresh content, and so does your audience. A post updated last month scores much higher than one sitting untouched since 2024.
SEO (25%) — This checks the basics: does the article have a target keyword? Is the meta description filled in? Are headings structured properly? It’s not a full SEO audit, but it catches the fundamentals that matter most for search visibility.
Internal Links (20%) — Articles that link to other content on your site perform better than orphaned pages. This factor looks at both inbound and outbound internal links. If an article is sitting alone with no connections to the rest of your content, that drags the score down.
Social Signals (15%) — Shares, engagement, external references. This carries the least weight because social performance varies a lot by topic. But consistently low social signals on an article can indicate it’s not resonating with your audience.
Adaptive Scoring
Not everyone uses every module. If you’ve turned off social tracking, ContentMK doesn’t just zero out that 15% — it redistributes the weight across the remaining active factors. Your scores stay meaningful regardless of which features you’re using.
What the Numbers Mean in Practice
An article sitting at 85 is in good shape. It’s been updated relatively recently, has solid SEO fundamentals, and is well-connected to your other content. You don’t need to touch it right now.
An article at 55 deserves a look. Maybe it hasn’t been updated in eight months, or it’s missing internal links. It’s not an emergency, but it should be on your list.
An article at 35 needs work. Something is clearly off — probably a combination of stale content, weak SEO, and poor linking. This is the kind of post that’s either dragging down your site or just taking up space.
Tips for Improving Scores
Start with the lowest scores. Sort your content inventory by health score and work from the bottom up. The biggest gains come from fixing the worst-performing articles.
Focus on freshness first. It’s worth 40% of the score and it’s the easiest to fix. Sometimes all an article needs is a review, a few updated stats, and a new “last modified” date.
Build internal links intentionally. When you publish a new article, link to two or three related pieces. Then go back to those older pieces and link forward to the new one. It helps both the score and your readers.
Don’t chase 100. A score in the 70-85 range is healthy. Obsessing over perfect scores isn’t a good use of your time. Focus on getting everything above 50 first, then raise the floor from there.
Health scores aren’t a grade — they’re a prioritization tool. Use them to figure out where your time will have the most impact.