Article Tracking - ContentMK Docs

Articles are the core unit of ContentMK. Every piece of content you track — whether imported from WordPress, crawled from a sitemap, or added manually — is stored as an article with a consistent set of fields.

Article Fields

Each article tracks the following information:

Title — The article’s headline
URL — Unique per site to prevent duplicate entries
Slug — Auto-generated from the title; editable if you need a custom slug
Status — Current state of the article (see below)
Health score — A 0–100 composite score based on freshness, SEO completeness, internal links, and social sharing
Categories — Free-form tags for organizing articles by topic (comma-separated, e.g. “news, tutorials”)
Last updated date — Drives the auto-status detection system
Notes — A free-text field for any additional context or internal reminders

Adding an Article

To add an article manually, click the Add Article button in the top-right corner of the article table. Fill in the following fields:

Title (required) — The article’s headline.
URL (required) — The full URL of the article. Must be unique within the site — ContentMK won’t let you create a duplicate.
Slug — Auto-generated from the title. You can edit it if the generated version doesn’t match your needs.
Status — Choose from the four status types. Defaults to Published.
Categories — A comma-separated list of categories for organizing content.
Notes — Internal notes about the article for your own reference.

Click Add Article to save. The new article appears immediately in the article table.

You can also import articles in bulk through WordPress sync, CSV import, or sitemap crawl. See the Sync guide for details on bulk import options.

Status Types

Every article has one of four statuses:

Status	Meaning
Published	Live on your site and current
Draft	Not yet published or still in progress
Needs Review	Age has passed the first freshness threshold — should be reviewed for accuracy
Out of Date	Age has passed the second freshness threshold — likely contains stale information

Auto-Status Detection

ContentMK automatically transitions articles to “Needs Review” or “Out of Date” based on their age relative to your site’s configured freshness thresholds. You do not need to manually flag stale content — the system surfaces it for you.

Thresholds are configured per site in Settings, so a news site can flag content after 1 month while an evergreen site uses 6-month cycles.

Article List

The article list is built with TanStack Table and provides:

Sortable columns — Click any column header to sort ascending or descending
Client-side search — Start typing 3 or more characters to instantly filter by title, URL, or category
Status filters — Filter by Published, Draft, Needs Review, or Out of Date
Health score sorting — Quickly find your lowest-scoring content

Searching Articles

Use the search bar above the article table to filter articles. Type at least 3 characters to activate the filter. The search matches against article title, URL, and categories. Results update instantly as you type, filtering the current view in real time. Clear the search field to show all articles again.

Filtering by Status

Use the status dropdown on the left side of the filter bar to show only articles with a specific status:

All Statuses — Show every article (default)
Published — Show only published articles
Draft — Show only drafts
Needs Review — Show only articles needing review
Out of Date — Show only outdated articles

The status filter works in combination with the search bar — you can filter by status and search text at the same time.

Article Edit Page

Click any article title in the table (or use the three-dot menu and select Edit) to open its dedicated edit page. The edit page uses a two-column layout designed to keep your primary editing fields and supplementary content visible at the same time.

Main Column

The left side of the page holds two sections that are always visible — no collapsing or toggling needed:

Article Details — Title, URL, slug, status, categories, and notes. The URL field is locked by default to prevent accidental changes; check the Enable URL editing checkbox to unlock it when you need to make a change.

SEO — If the Basic SEO module is active, SEO metadata fields appear below the article details. These include target keyword, meta title, meta description, and plugin data fields. SEO fields save independently through their own controls.

The right side of the page holds a tabbed panel with three tabs:

Files — Upload, organize, rename, and manage files associated with the article. Drag and drop files into the upload zone, or browse the file tree organized by subfolder. See the Article Files guide for full details.
Notes — WordPress notes synced from the WP Notes system, displayed in a threaded view.
Schema — Schema.org structured data types associated with the article, including both auto-detected and manually added types.

A resizable divider sits between the main column and sidebar. Drag it to adjust the proportions to your liking — ContentMK remembers your preferred layout across sessions. The sidebar tab selection also persists, so you’ll return to whichever tab you were last using.

Saving Changes

Click the Save button in the header to save article detail changes. A green confirmation indicator appears briefly after a successful save — no page reload needed. SEO fields save independently through their own save controls within the SEO section.

Deleting an Article

To delete an article, use the three-dot menu on the article row in the table, or open the article edit page and use the delete option in the header dropdown menu. Either way, a confirmation dialog appears before anything is removed.

If the article is linked to a WordPress post (has a wp_post_id), the confirmation dialog includes an additional checkbox: “Also move the WordPress post to Trash.” This checkbox is unchecked by default, meaning:

Unchecked (default): Only removes the article from ContentMK. The WordPress post is left untouched.
Checked: Sends a DELETE request to the WordPress REST API, moving the post to WordPress Trash. The post is not permanently deleted — you can recover it from Trash in WordPress if needed.

The local article is always deleted from ContentMK regardless of what happens with WordPress. If the WordPress trash operation fails (due to missing credentials, network issues, or any other reason), the article is still removed locally and a warning is returned. This graceful degradation means a WordPress connectivity problem never blocks you from cleaning up your local content inventory.

When an article is deleted, its associated sync state, notes, and changelog entries are also cleaned up.

Activity Logging

All article operations are logged in the site’s activity feed. This includes article creation, field updates, and deletions. The activity log gives you a clear audit trail of what changed, when, and provides context when you’re reviewing content history across your team’s workflow.