Entity and trust · Branch E.C, Local and operational source of truth
E-09 Price, stock, availability and service scope must come from one current source
Commercial facts must rely on the same source of truth across the web page, schema, feed and sales operations, and the checked or updated time must be visible where needed.
- Scope
- Commerce, local services and time-sensitive offers
- Priority
- Gate. A FAIL stops publish or launch.
- Quality bucket
- Entity and trust
- Legacy coverage
- GEO-25
Why it matters
Shoppers who see one price on a page and another at checkout, or who find an item advertised that is out of stock, lose trust and often leave. Search engines and AI answer engines that read the page, schema and feed can find conflicting facts and show outdated or wrong offers. Tying everything to one source keeps what people are told in line with what the business actually sells.
How to implement
- Set up one catalogue and pricing source and make it the only place changes are made.
- Generate the page content, structured data and feed from that source.
- Add a visible checked or updated time to anything that changes quickly.
- Push stock and price changes out quickly using IndexNow or a feed update.
- Explain the conditions behind any 'from' price on the page.
Checklist
- Create a single catalogue and pricing source of truth.
- Feed the site, structured data and feed from the same source.
- Add a checked or updated timestamp to time-sensitive information.
- Publish stock and price changes quickly through IndexNow or a feed update.
- Show the conditions of a 'from' price clearly.
How to audit
- Check parity between page, schema and feed.
- Check the SLA for stale data.
- Run a sample order or quote test.
How UltimateSEO checks this automatically
This control needs human evidence: the source-of-truth system for price, stock, availability and service scope and proof that published values match it.
States used: PASS, FAIL, UNKNOWN, NOT_APPLICABLE or BLOCKED. UNKNOWN is never shown as a pass. How states work.
Sources
Part of The UltimateSEO Framework v4.1, revised 2026-10-07. Evidence states, control states and the publish gate are explained on the hub.