Why every figure here carries a date
Platform specifications and vendor limits move, usually quietly. A figure recorded with the day it was read can be held against its source later. A figure without one is a claim nobody can verify or refute, and it ages invisibly. As of 2026-09-12.
| Without a date | With a date | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| A figure of unknown age | A figure as of a known day | Staleness becomes visible |
| No way to re-check | A source page and a day to compare against | Corrections become possible |
| Confirmed and unexamined look alike | Re-checking advances the date | Attention becomes measurable |
Inclusion rule. Practices this kind of register depends on. No claim is made about how often any particular page changes. Order. The failure first, then the remedy.
1A silent change is the normal case
Ad platforms revise help pages without notices. Vendors add tiers, change ceilings and rewrite parameter tables between releases. Nothing in either case produces an announcement a reader is likely to see.
So the useful record is not the figure but the pair: the figure and the day somebody looked. Anything older than that is a question rather than a fact, and a register should make the age obvious rather than hide it.
2Re-checking and finding nothing still counts
Holding a figure against its source and finding it unchanged is work, and it should move the date. Otherwise a figure confirmed this week and a figure last examined a year ago sit in the table looking identical.
That is why two dates are better than one: when a value first entered the record, and when it was last held against the page. The gap between them is the honest measure of how much attention a row has had.
3A page dated by its content, not by the build
If every page in a register carried today's date because the site was regenerated, the dates would carry no information at all. A page's date should move when its content moves and stay still otherwise.
That is a technical discipline with an editorial purpose. It keeps the dates meaning what a reader assumes they mean, which is the only reason to print them.
A craft note, not a spec. Nothing here is taken from a platform or a vendor, and nothing here should be quoted as a requirement. The sourced material is on published limits. Related: Conditions in the cell, What a sheet cannot settle.
4From brief to placement
For ad work around “Why dates matter”, SceneMixer's pages explain how its ad projects are produced:
For places, every photo you add becomes a set the shots can move through, up to four.
SceneMixer, An AI Ad for a Store or a Property — “Can I add several rooms?” (read 2026-10-13)
The script is written from the photos and the one-line description. In step-by-step mode you can rewrite it before anything is shot.
SceneMixer, How to Make an Ad from One Photo — “Do I need a script?” (read 2026-10-13)