This guide will take you through Content Groups in SEOTesting.

What are Content Groups?

A Content Group is a bunch of URLs that are tracked over a long period of time.

This is different to SEO tests, as tests have an end date. Content Groups continue to track the performance of the URLs (forever in theory).

Content Groups can be created using

• An exact list of URLs
• Using Search Console filters
• Using RegEx
• an XML sitemap

Upon creation of the group, SEOTesting will go and retrieve the last 16 months worth of data available. From that point onwards, the Content Group updates at the end of each week or month - depending on the update frequency set at creation time.

Please bear in mind Search Console data is usually 2 days behind, so a weekly Content Group will often update on a Tuesday and a monthly Content Group will update on the 3rd of next month.

How are Content Groups useful?

Content Groups are used:

• By agencies that are only allowed to work on a subset of URLs across a big site and want to track their performance.
• To track the performance of individual authors.
• To track the performance of newly published content.
• To track the performance of content that has been refreshed.
• To track the performance of content clusters.

How to set up a Content Group

The steps to create a content group are straightforward:

1. Give a name to the group.
2. Fill in the description.
3. Select the update frequency.
4. Enter the URLs to track.
5. Create the group.

Now, let's see those steps in more detail.

Click 'Content Groups' on the left sidebar and then click the 'Actions' button at the top right, selecting 'Create' from the dropdown options:

Select which type of Content Group you want:

Now, give your content group a name that is easy to identify.

Fill in a description to help you remember what the content group is about and what it is tracking.

Select the group's update frequency. Select 'Weekly' if you want it updated every week or 'Monthly' if you want it updated once a month:

Click 'Next'.

The final step is to enter the URLs, filter, regex or XML sitemap URL:

How the Content Group filters work -

You can use following options to select URLs for a content group:

• Exact Match URLs : use exact match URLs when you want to track a list of specific pages.
• Contains URLs : when you want to track a group of pages containing a certain URL fragment.
• URLs matching this regex will be included/excluded : it's also possible to enter a regex expression to track or exclude certain URLs on the site.
• **Sitemap URL **: each time a Content Group processes, it will request the XML sitemap file and get the data for all the URLs contained in the sitemap.

If you add an exact match URL of:

https://seotesting.com/blog/blog-post-1

and a Contains filter of:

/blog/

The Content Group will count the data for blog-post-1 twice, as it will be returned by the exact match URL and contains filter.

Click 'Next' once you have finished to review your Content Group.

AI Summaries for Content Groups:

When you're tracking content groups, we have an AI summary feature that pulls in everything it needs automatically - your current period's performance, the previous period for comparison, historical trends, any algorithm updates that landed, annotations you've logged, and relevant SEO tests.

To view this, select 'Content Groups' from the launchpad on the left-hand toolbar, select any content group you wish to view, and then hit the 'AI Summary' button at the top right:

You will then be given a clear Content Group summary as below:

It gives you an executive summary with trend direction, highlights the top and under-performing pages, flags what's changed period-over-period, and lays out recommended next steps. If something's declining, it'll tell you whether it looks like a seasonal dip, an algorithm shift, or something specific to your content.

This can be downloaded as a formatted PDF by selecting the 'Download PDF' button at the bottom of the report. There's also a client-ready summary (around 150 words) you can copy with one click and drop straight into an email, a Slack message, or a LinkedIn post.

FAQs

How to add URLs and Filters to an Existing Content Group

Please read this article on how to edit the URLs/filters that make up an existing Content Group.

How to change the frequency a content group updates?

Unfortunately you can't update the frequency of an already created/processed Content Group. Please read this article on how to copy and re-create the Content Group and change the update frequency.

How to edit a content group?

To edit a content group, press the 'Actions; button on the right side of the screen and select 'Edit' from the drop down. From here you can make a change to the name or description.

Updated on: 20/04/2026