When the Sources Disagree
A profile and its placements are read together. When they describe the same person differently, an engine has to choose between them, and it does not always choose the page you own.
Personal reputation & personal branding for the AI era · Founder, ExcBrand.AI
4 min read
In one paragraph
Once a professional has a profile they own, every placement should agree with it: the same name, title, company and dates. Where sources disagree, an AI engine has to choose and may choose the outdated one. Keep the profile as the reference, correct it first when a fact changes, then ask each outlet to correct its piece.
A Profile Is Not a Placement argued for an order: build the page you own first, then earn the coverage that points at it. This piece is about what comes after, when both exist and have to keep agreeing with each other for years.
Two sources, one person
A model asked about a person reads several sources and writes one paragraph. If the profile says managing partner and a two-year-old interview says director, the paragraph has to choose. It may hedge, it may pick the older title because more pages repeat it, or it may merge the two into a sentence neither source would sign.
What has to match
- The name exactly as the person writes it, including the spelling they chose for a name first written in another alphabet.
- The current title and the company, in the words the person uses rather than a paraphrase.
- The dates of each role, so a career reads in the same order everywhere it appears.
- A link back to the profile, so a reader and an engine can find the reference in one step.
None of this asks a publication to say anything it would not say anyway. It asks that the facts it prints are the facts on the record, which is what a careful editor wants too.
When a fact changes
People change roles, companies rename themselves, a board seat ends. The order of the correction matters as much as the correction itself.
- Change the profile first. It is the page you control, and it becomes the reference everything else is checked against.
- Then write to each outlet that printed the old fact and ask for a correction or an editor’s note. Most will fix a plain factual error; some will not, and that is their decision to make.
- Then read the paired searches again, to see which answers have caught up and which still carry the old line.
A correction starts on the page you own.
What we will not do
Agreement is about accurate facts. We do not ask outlets to take down fair reporting, we do not publish pages to crowd out a story, and we do not present a paid piece as independent coverage. Making the record consistent is never a way to make an inconvenient fact disappear.
The terms this piece uses
- Reference record
- The page a professional owns that states their facts plainly: name, title, company, dates. Every other source is checked against it.
- Source agreement
- The state in which the profile and every placement describe the person with the same facts, so an engine has nothing to choose between.
- Correction order
- Profile first, then the placements that repeat the old fact, then a fresh reading of the searches that matter.
What to take from this
- A profile and its placements are read together, so they have to agree.
- Where sources disagree, an engine chooses, and it may choose the outdated one.
- Name, title, company and dates are the four facts that most often drift.
- A correction starts on the page you own, then moves outward.
- Consistency is about accurate facts, never about hiding one.
Questions people ask
- What happens when an old article has a professional’s outdated title?
- An AI engine reading both the article and the current profile has to choose between them, and may repeat the old title. The fix is to keep the profile current and ask the outlet for a correction or an editor’s note.
- Which should be corrected first, the profile or the press?
- The profile. It is the page the person controls, it can change the same day, and it becomes the reference that every request to an outlet points to.
- Does this mean asking outlets to remove articles?
- No. It means asking them to correct plain factual errors, such as a title or a date. Fair reporting stays where it is.
Written with the help of AI and reviewed by our team.
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