Field note 03

Why dates belong beside claims

How time, product changes and inaccessible pages affect what a citation observation can support.

5 min readUpdated 6 November 2026SEOGEO editorial
Guide

Answers move

AI products change their interfaces, retrieval sources and model behavior. An observation without a date can remain online long after the conditions that produced it have changed.

Guide

Keep the trail

Link to the answer snapshot, the cited URL and the method version. If a page becomes unavailable, retain the original URL and mark the limitation instead of quietly deleting the record.

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Inspect the supporting evidence

Read the observation method before combining examples into a broader conclusion.

Read the method