Inspect the source's own timeline
Open the page and look for an explicit publication date, update note and image credit. Keep these separate in your notes. If a page has been revised, its current date may tell you little about when the image was added.
Compare before concluding
- Record the date exactly as labelled.
- Look for an earlier credible publication of the same image.
- Check captions for references to an older event.
- Preserve conflicting dates instead of choosing the convenient one.
An article published this week may illustrate its story with a photograph from years ago. A result pointing to that article does not make the image recent.
Write a narrow conclusion
Say “this image appears on a page dated…” when that is all you know. Reserve “first published” or “taken on” for evidence that specifically supports those claims. A source-search result is the beginning of a timeline review, not a complete provenance record.
Continue with how image search works.
Written by Facehunch with AI assistance and checked against the cited sources. Our editorial policy.