Source consistency checklist for experts

Your public pages do not need identical wording. They do need to agree on the facts a reader would use to understand who you are and what you offer. An old biography, a directory profile, and a current website can easily drift apart. That makes it harder for a client to verify information and harder for you to explain an AI answer that combines stale details.

Use this checklist to maintain factual consistency. It will not guarantee rankings, citations, or recommendations. Its purpose is to give readers accurate, inspectable information.

Build a small source inventory

List the pages where people can find information about your professional work. Include your site, author pages, professional profiles, directories you control, employer or association pages, and published work with a byline. Do not add private profiles or confidential project pages.

Start with pages that appear in a returned AI answer. Then add the pages that a prospective client is likely to inspect. A longer list does not make the record better if nobody reviews it.

Check the identity facts

For each page, compare the facts below against a current source you control or another appropriate primary source.

• Name and professional name
• Role and organisation, where relevant
• Service description
• Location, languages, or sectors when they affect fit
• Current contact route
• Links to relevant work, bylines, or profiles

Write down actual conflicts. “Maya Chen, leadership coach” and “Maya Chen, executive facilitator” may both be accurate. “Maya Chen, independent adviser” and “Maya Chen, employee at a company she left three years ago” require a correction or a note about the historical date.

Check the claims that influence a decision

Review claims about credentials, employers, clients, results, awards, and years of experience. For each one, ask whether the page is current, specific, permitted, and supportable.

Here is an illustrative maintenance note:

Do not replace a precise fact with a grander claim. A public record should help a reader decide whether to contact you, not create an impression that cannot be checked.

Use structured data carefully

Google documents ProfilePage structured data for pages whose main focus is a single person or organisation. It describes the markup and its eligibility requirements. Structured data helps systems interpret page information, but Google does not promise that markup will appear in search features. Google’s ProfilePage documentation Structured data introduction

Only add markup that matches visible page content. Keep the on-page name, role, and links accurate first. Do not use markup to assert a credential, relationship, or result that the page cannot support.

Set review dates you can keep

Give each source a next review date based on how often it changes. A service page may need a review after an offer changes. A conference biography may need attention before a new event. A stable published article may only need a broken-link check.

Keep the inventory with your scan evidence. When you later inspect an answer, you can see whether an apparent contradiction comes from an old page, a mixed identity, or an unsupported claim. How to audit a source cited in an AI answer gives you the page-level record to use.