{"id":612,"slug":"rule-visible-last-updated-stamp-on-public-artifact","title":"RULE: Every public Candid artifact carries a visible \"last updated\" stamp. Living-document discipline beats one-shot publication.","kind":"rule","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["claude-code","dev","candid-team"],"topics":["freshness","agency-methodology","editorial-discipline"],"reference_body":"**Rule:** Every public Candid Creative artifact — KB article, blog post, marketing page, downloadable PDF — carries a **visible \"last updated\" stamp** AND a `dateModified` in structured data. Living-document discipline beats one-shot publication.\n\n**Why:**\n- AI engines prefer fresher sources: Ahrefs 17M-URL study found AI-cited content is 25.7% fresher than organic results ([[ahrefs-ai-citations-fresher-25-7pct-2025]])\n- Seer Interactive (Oct 2025): 65% of AI bot hits target content under 1 year old ([[seer-content-recency-2025]])\n- Visible refresh dates are simultaneously trust signals to human readers and freshness signals to crawlers\n- Without the discipline, content slowly slips out of the freshness window and AI-citation eligibility degrades silently\n\n**How to apply:**\n- Article templates carry both `datePublished` and `dateModified` (already a rule from brief 5 — [[rule-publish-and-last-updated-dates-mandatory]])\n- Visible UI: show both dates near the title (\"Published Apr 2026 · Updated Jun 2026\")\n- Quarterly refresh pass per Stage 5 of [[research-first-workflow-stages-0-to-5]] — actually update content, not cosmetic touch-ups\n- For research briefs and KB entries: the entry's `updated_at` already serves this function via the [[project-candid-kb]] schema\n- For marketing pages: if a sourced claim becomes stale, either update or remove — never leave a 2024 stat dressed as current","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"ahrefs-ai-citations-fresher-25-7pct-2025","title":"Ahrefs (2025, 17M citations): AI-cited content is 25.7% fresher than traditional organic results","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"seer-content-recency-2025","title":"Seer Interactive (Oct 2025): 65% of AI bot hits target content under 1 year old; 89% under 3 years","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"rule-publish-and-last-updated-dates-mandatory","title":"RULE: Every page ships with a publish date and a last-updated date. Refresh quarterly minimum.","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-research-before-pages","title":"Research brief: Research Before Pages — methodology for KB-backed websites (piece 14 of 15)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-05-22T20:46:33.423Z","updated_at":"2026-05-22T20:46:33.423Z"}