Conflicting Information on Your Site: How to Find and Fix Contradictions

Key takeaways

Keep one fact register with an owner per fact.
Fix the source page first, then every copy in one pass.
Make structured data match the visible page.

Conflicting information on a website happens when the same fact appears with different values on different pages. One page says the basic plan costs $29. Another says $25. The Contact page lists hours that the footer contradicts. Readers lose trust, and search engines and AI answers may pick up the wrong version.

The fix is a fact register: one list of every fact that appears on more than one page, with its correct value and an owner. This guide shows how to build it, search your site for each fact, and keep contradictions from coming back. It ends with the register template and a 6-point pre-publish check. For the full audit process, see the guide to SEO content audits.

What counts as a contradiction

A contradiction is any fact that has two or more values on your own site. Common ones are:

Prices and plan limits.
Business hours and holiday closures.
Service areas and locations.
Product specs, such as sizes, weights, or supported devices.
Policies, such as refund windows or trial lengths.
Steps in a process, such as how to cancel or book.

This guide covers facts on your own site. When outside sources disagree with each other, the guide to handling conflicting sources explains what to do.

It is also different from keyword cannibalization, where two pages compete for the same search. Two competing pages often contain conflicting facts, though. The guide to keyword cannibalization covers that side.

Why it matters for search and AI answers

Readers who see two prices do not know which to believe. Some leave. Others contact you to ask, which costs your team time.

Search engines document why accuracy matters. Google’s guide to creating helpful, reliable content says trust is the most important part of E-E-A-T. Bing’s Webmaster Guidelines say grounded answers and citations depend on content Bing can clearly interpret and verify. They also ask you to remove or revise outdated information to prevent incorrect information from surfacing.

Trust signals on the page, such as sources and dates, are covered in the E-E-A-T audit guide.

Build a fact register

A fact register is a simple table. Each row is one fact. For each fact, record:

Fact: what it is, such as “Basic plan monthly price.”
Correct value: the value that is true today.
Owner: the person who can confirm it.
Pages where it appears: every URL that mentions it.
Last checked: the date someone confirmed it.

Start with the facts that cost the most when wrong: prices, hours, policies, and anything on health, money, or safety pages. The guide to YMYL content explains why those pages need extra care.

Search your site for each fact

For each fact, find every page that mentions it:

Search your CMS for the old and new values, such as “$25” and “$29.”
Search for the topic words too, such as “basic plan.”
Use a site search in Google, such as site:yourdomain.com "basic plan", to find pages you forgot.
Check templates, footers, and pop-ups. These repeat a fact on every page.
Check PDFs and help center articles if they live on your domain.

Add every URL you find to the register.

Fix the source page first, then the copies

Pick one page as the source of truth for each fact. For prices, it is usually the pricing page. For hours, it is usually the Contact page.

Confirm the correct value with the owner.
Update the source page.
Update every copy in the register, in one pass.
Where possible, link to the source page instead of repeating the fact.
Record the date in the register.

Fixing everything in one pass matters. If you fix half the pages this week and half next month, readers see a contradiction the whole time.

If old posts carry facts you can no longer keep current, consider merging or removing them. The guide to content pruning covers that decision.

Check that structured data matches the page

Structured data can carry facts too, such as prices, hours, and ratings. Google’s structured data general guidelines say your markup must be a true representation of the page content. The content in your markup should also be visible to readers.

So when you change a price on the page, change it in the markup too. A plugin may fill markup from a different field than the one you edited. Check the live page, not just the editor. If Search Console reports structured data problems, see the guide to structured data errors in Search Console.

Contradictions inside one article

A single article can contradict itself. It happens when sections are written at different times or by different people. Common signs:

The intro says “five steps,” and the article has six.
A table lists one price, and the text lists another.
The FAQ gives a different answer from the main body.

Read the article once with only this in mind. Compare every number and every promise against the rest of the page.

Worked example: a cleaning service

Fictional example. An imaginary home cleaning company finds three contradictions:

Its standard clean is $120 on the pricing page, $110 on a 2024 blog post, and $115 in its service markup.
Its Saturday hours differ between the footer and the Contact page.
Its service area page lists four towns, while a blog post lists five.

The owner confirms the correct values. The team fixes the pricing page, the blog post, the markup, the footer, and the service area page in one afternoon. The blog post now links to the pricing page instead of stating a price.

Keep it fixed

Contradictions come back when new content repeats a fact without checking. Add the fact register to your publishing checklist. Review it whenever a price, policy, or service changes. Set a recheck date for each fact.

Where DEX fits

DEX connects search research, content planning, article writing, and publishing on the connected site. The correct values come from your business. Keep the register where writers check it before every new article.

Fact register template

Fact	Correct value	Owner	Pages where it appears	Last checked
Standard clean price	$120	Operations manager	/pricing/, /blog/what-a-standard-clean-includes/, service markup	[date]
Saturday hours	9 a.m. to 2 p.m.	Office manager	/contact/, site footer	[date]

Example rows are fictional.

6-point pre-publish check

Every price, hour, limit, and policy in the draft matches the fact register.
Facts that change often link to their source page instead of being repeated.
Numbers in the intro, tables, text, and FAQ all agree.
Structured data on the page uses the same values as the visible text.
Any new repeated fact has been added to the register with an owner.
The page shows an honest updated date if facts were changed.

FAQ

What is a fact register?

A list of facts that appear on more than one page, with the correct value and an owner.

Why do contradictions matter for AI answers?

Bing says grounded answers depend on content it can interpret and verify.

Does structured data need to match the page?

Yes. Google says markup must be a true representation of the page content.

Sources

Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content · Google
General structured data guidelines · Google
Bing Webmaster Guidelines · Microsoft Bing

Dex SEO

Dex SEO is an AI SEO agent for small businesses. Every article here is planned from search data, drafted by Dex, fact-checked against the sources it cites, and reviewed by the team before it is published.

How this article was made: planned and drafted by Dex from search data, fact-checked by Dex (4 claims checked), then approved by the Dex SEO team.