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What is one blog post worth over three years?

17 October 2026

In how many posts before Google sends real traffic we looked at a whole site. This post zooms in on one page and asks: what is a single blog post actually worth - and is it worth what it cost to write?

A post's life has three stages

A new post earns little while Google decides where to rank it, then settles at its best month, then slowly fades as it ages and newer pages catch up. The calculator models exactly that.

• The ramp: visits climb in a straight line until the month it ranks. The default is 6 months - in Ahrefs' study, most new pages that reached Google's top 10 took 61 to 182 days to get there (Ahrefs, 2017).
• The peak: 150 visits a month is the default - a post that ranks well. It is an assumption: Ahrefs found 96.55% of pages get no Google traffic at all (2023), so many posts never reach this.
• The fade: the default loses 20% of its visits a year. That is an estimate - a post you keep up to date may lose almost nothing, one in a fast-moving topic far more.
• What each visit earns: $10 per 1,000 visits - 2 pages a visit at the $5 page RPM midpoint for travel, food and home (Aditude, 23 July 2025).

Work out what your post is worth

Type a post's visits a month at its best, how long it took to rank, how fast it fades, what 1,000 visits earn you and what it cost to write. The calculator shows the visits and earnings over its life, whether it pays for itself and the traffic it would need to - with a chart.

Prefer a full page? Open the blog post value calculator on CalcSA. For the whole site, the posts until Google traffic calculator adds many posts together; the ads vs affiliate calculator shows how much more a visit can earn.

Worked example: the calculator's defaults

One post that ranks in month 6, peaks at 150 visits a month, loses 20% a year after that, earns $10 per 1,000 visits and cost R1,500 to write. Dollar earnings are converted at the European Central Bank reference rate the calculator stores (14 October 2026: $1 = R16.47).

• Over three years it brings about 3,940 visits, and is still getting about 86 a month at the end.
• It earns about R650 - $39.42 - in those three years.
• It does not pay back its R1,500 in that time.
• To pay back in three years it would need about 347 visits a month at its best, more than twice the default.
• Year one brings 35% of the three-year total; the other 65% arrives in years two and three.

Five more cases, same defaults except the one shown:

• Kept fresh, losing nothing: about 5,030 visits and R830 over three years.
• Losing 40% a year: about 3,010 visits and R500.
• Counted over five years: about 5,590 visits and R920 - still short of R1,500.
• A winner at 500 visits a month: about R2,160 over three years, paid back in month 24.
• A typical weak post at 30 visits a month: about R130 over three years.

Estimates. The 150 visits, 6 months to rank, 20% a year loss, $10 per 1,000 visits and R1,500 cost are assumptions, as in the calculator. Real posts do not follow a smooth curve, and a post can also earn by bringing in email subscribers or sales, which this leaves out. The exchange rate moves the rand result too: the live calculator uses the latest ECB rate, so its numbers may differ slightly from these.

One post's visits over three years

The same post, with three different fade rates:

• The first six months earn almost nothing - R86 - while the post climbs into the results.
• A fresh post keeps its best month for years; a neglected one is down to under half by year three at 40% a year.
• Updating old posts is cheap traffic: holding a post at its peak is worth about R330 more over three years than letting it fade at 40%.

Reading your counter for this

Your WebCounter counter shows visits page by page, so you can see where each post sits on its curve. No counter yet? Get your free WebCounter counter - it takes a minute.

• Visits a month for one page on your WebCounter report is the calculator's "visits at its best" - use a post that is 6 to 12 months old.
• Months to rank is when that page's visits stopped climbing. Look back at its first months on your report.
• The fade is this year's visits against last year's for the same page: 120 after 150 is a 20% loss.
• Sort your pages by visits. A few posts usually bring most of the traffic - those are the ones worth updating first.

Sources

• Ahrefs, Tim Soulo, "96.55% of content gets no traffic from Google" (2023 update) - share of pages with no Google traffic. Not re-checked at the original on 17 October 2026; as cited in the CalcSA calculators.
• Ahrefs, Tim Soulo, "How long does it take to rank in Google?" (2017) - most new top-10 pages took 61 to 182 days. Not re-checked at the original on 17 October 2026; as cited in the CalcSA calculators.
• Aditude, "RPM for Publishers" (23 July 2025) - $5 page RPM midpoint for travel, food and home. Not re-checked at the original on 17 October 2026; as cited in the CalcSA calculator.
• European Central Bank euro reference rates, 14 October 2026 (stored copy in the calculator) - $1 = R16.47.
• Calculator: CalcSA, What one blog post is worth.

Estimates only. What a post earns depends on its topic, how well it ranks and how you earn from it; your own counter and ad dashboard beat any average.