Publishing a page is a promise that it is accurate today. Keeping that promise across a live library means corrections are not embarrassing exceptions, they are routine operations you do well. The teams that get this wrong either ignore errors until they pile up, or fix them invisibly and lose track of what was changed and why. A disciplined approach to updates and corrections is what lets a large site stay honest as the world keeps moving underneath it.
It is the integrity layer of building a content factory, and it is mostly about record keeping and reach.
Updates and corrections are not the same thing
It helps to separate two kinds of change. An update is planned maintenance: refreshing a page as part of the normal cycle because the topic has moved on. A correction is a response to an error: something was wrong and needs fixing now. They run at different speeds and deserve different handling.
Updates flow through the standing rhythm covered in the review and refresh workflow, scheduled and prioritised by value. Corrections jump the queue, because a known error is a live liability and every day it stays up costs trust. Confusing the two is how real errors sit for weeks waiting for a scheduled review that was never meant to catch them.
Log every correction
The single most important habit is to record every correction. We keep a ledger: what the page said, what it says now, why it changed, and the date. This is not bureaucracy, it serves three concrete purposes.
- Accountability. When a claim is challenged, you can show what you changed and when, which is the difference between a credible operator and a defensive one.
- Pattern detection. A ledger reveals systemic problems. If the same kind of error keeps recurring, the fix is upstream, in the brief or the prompt, not in endless individual edits.
- Honest dates. The ledger is what lets the last reviewed date mean something, because you can tie every date to a real change.
A correction nobody recorded is a correction you cannot learn from. The ledger turns scattered fixes into a signal you can act on.
Fix the source, not just the symptom
When the same error appears on several pages, fixing each page is treating the symptom. The cause is usually a flawed input: a brief that carried a wrong assumption, a prompt that encouraged a bad pattern, a research note that was off. The durable fix is upstream. We trace a recurring correction back to where it entered the pipeline and fix it there, so the next hundred pages never carry it.
This is the same logic that runs through system prompts that hold quality: the highest leverage repair is almost always to the system that produces the pages, not to the pages themselves. A correction handled well makes the whole factory a little more accurate.
Chase the claim everywhere it lives
The trap in correcting a large library is fixing the obvious page and leaving the same wrong claim sitting on three others. A fact at scale is rarely confined to one place: a fee, a name or a figure may appear in a pillar, a sibling article and a glossary entry. A correction is not finished until you have found every instance and fixed them all, including the opening answer block, which is the part most likely to be quoted by a search snippet or an AI overview.
This is where a clean internal structure pays off. Because pages are linked deliberately and tracked in one place, finding every appearance of a claim is a search, not an excavation. A library without that structure makes complete corrections nearly impossible, which is one more reason we build the link graph and the tracking spine with care from the start.
Move the reviewed date only when it is true
The last reviewed date is a trust signal, and trust signals are worthless the moment they are faked. We move a page's reviewed date only when a real review or correction has happened. Bumping every date on a schedule to look fresh is a short term trick that destroys the one thing the date is for. An honest date that is a few months old is worth more than a dishonest one from today, because readers and search engines both eventually learn which sites mean it.
When to tell the reader, and when not to
Not every change deserves a visible note, and judging which do is part of doing this well. A typo fix or a tightened sentence is silent housekeeping, and flagging it would only clutter the page. But a substantive correction, where the page previously told readers something that was wrong and they may have acted on it, is different. When the error was material, saying so plainly is the trustworthy move, not the embarrassing one.
The form can be light. A short, dated line noting that a figure or a fact was updated is usually enough, placed where a reader who relied on the old version would see it. The aim is honesty, not self flagellation. You are not apologising at length, you are giving the reader the information they need to trust the page now and to know it is actively maintained. Readers reward that candour, and the absence of it is exactly what makes people distrust sites that present themselves as flawless.
Internally, the threshold for a visible note ties back to the ledger. Because every correction is already recorded with what changed and why, deciding whether it crosses the line into a reader facing note is a quick judgement against a clear record rather than a debate from memory. The ledger does the remembering, and the visible note is reserved for the corrections that genuinely affect what a reader would do.
Corrections are a feature, not a failure
The mindset that matters most is this: a visible, well handled correction builds trust rather than eroding it. A site that never appears to correct anything is either perfect, which is impossible at scale, or hiding its errors, which readers sense. A site that fixes things promptly, traces them to the source and keeps an honest record reads as exactly what it is, a serious operator that cares about being right. That is the reputation we are building, and it is central to our building thesis: durable authority comes from being trustworthy over years, not flawless on day one.
For how corrections connect to review, quality control and the wider operation, the content operations pillar sets the integrity layer in context. Handle updates and corrections with discipline and a large library becomes more trustworthy over time, not less.
The KHG Correction Ledger: every correction is logged with what changed, why and the date, and a page's last reviewed date moves only when the underlying change is real, never as decoration.
Common questions
How fast should corrections be handled?
Corrections jump the queue. A known error on a live page is an active liability, so it is fixed promptly rather than waiting for the next scheduled review, which is meant for planned maintenance.
When should the last reviewed date change?
Only when a genuine review or correction has happened. Bumping dates on a schedule to look fresh destroys the trust the date is meant to carry. An honest older date beats a faked recent one.