How FreshRank Works

FreshRank helps you keep your WordPress content updated and optimized by helping you improve user experience, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). The plugin uses artificial intelligence to analyze your blog posts, identify issues, and generate updated drafts. All without ever auto-publishing changes.

• What You'll Need to Get Started
• The Three Core Functions
• The Complete Workflow
• Why This Approach Works

What You'll Need to Get Started

Before using FreshRank, make sure you have:

• Required: OpenAI or OpenRouter API key - FreshRank uses AI models to analyze and update your content. You'll need to create an account and obtain an API key from either OpenAI Platform for GPT models, or OpenRouter for users who want access to 450+ models including Claude, Gemini, and more.

• Optional: Google Search Console (GSC) Account - Connecting GSC enables priority scoring and helps you identify which posts need attention most urgently based on real traffic data. You can use FreshRank without GSC, but you won't have access to prioritization features.

The Three Core Functions

1. Prioritization: Find What Needs Attention First

FreshRank calculates a priority score (0-90 points) for each post to help you focus on content that needs updating most urgently.

What affects your priority score:

• Content Age (0-30 points): Older posts get higher scores. Posts over a year old score higher than recently published content.
• Traffic Decline (0-30 points): If your post's traffic has dropped compared to the previous period, it gets more points.
• Traffic Potential (0-30 points): Posts with lots of impressions but few clicks represent missed opportunities. FreshRank flags these for improvement.

2. Analysis: Identify What's Wrong

Once you click Analyze on a post, FreshRank's AI examines your content and identifies issues across five categories:

• User Experience: Problems that affect how readers interact with your content
• Factual Updates: Information that's outdated or incorrect
• Search Optimization: On-page SEO issues
• AI Visibility (GEO): How well AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity can understand and cite your content
• Opportunities: Future enhancements and improvements to consider

Each issue is marked with severity: High (urgent), Medium (important), or Low (minor).

Analysis takes 30 seconds to 15 minutes depending on your post length and AI model choice.

3. Draft Creation: Fix Issues Automatically

After reviewing your analysis, click Create Draft to have AI generate an updated version of your post.

How it works:

1. FreshRank sends your original content and the issues you want fixed to the AI
2. The AI generates improved content that addresses those specific problems
3. FreshRank creates a draft post titled "[FreshRank Draft] Your Original Title"
4. You review the changes side-by-side with your original content

The Content Updates Filter System:

You control exactly which issues get fixed by enabling/disabling:

• Categories: Choose which of the 5 categories to address
• Severity levels: Choose whether to fix High, Medium, and/or Low severity issues

For example, if you only enable "Factual Updates" + "High severity," the draft will only fix urgent factual errors, ignoring all other issues.

Draft generation takes 1-10 minutes depending on post length and complexity.

The Complete Workflow

Here's how everything works together:

1. View your posts in the FreshRank dashboard (all published posts load automatically)
2. Prioritize posts to identify which ones need the most attention
3. Analyze posts to identify issues (AI examines your content)
4. Review analysis results and adjust your content update filters
5. Create draft with AI-powered fixes
6. Review side-by-side comparison of original vs. updated content
7. Approve to publish, Edit Draft to make manual changes or Reject to keep your original article and start a new analysis

After you approve a draft, the content goes live immediately and the post is reset, ready to be analyzed again in the future as it ages or traffic patterns change.

Why This Approach Works

• Non-destructive: Everything creates drafts first. Your original content is never touched until you explicitly approve changes.
• Human-in-the-loop: You review every change before it goes live. The AI assists, but you make the final decision.
• Targeted: The content update filter system lets you fix only what matters most right now. You're not forced to implement every suggestion.
• Data-driven: Priority scores help you focus on content where updates will have the biggest impact.