Data Changelog

This log lists material corrections and surface changes PlainMedicare applied after publication, including the 2026-08-09 page-vintage sitemap lastmods, the 2026-08-08 slash-form sitemap and real-404 fixes, and the 2026-08-07 honest-org identity cleanup. Each entry is past-tense and tied to a repository commit; we do not invent rows to pad the list. How to report an issue is on the editorial & corrections policy and the typed corrections pathway. This public log starts on 2026-08-06. Data current as of 2026-09-01. Compiled state summaries stay downloadable as medicare-advantage-state-statistics.csv (same extract as the homepage Dataset).

  1. · Index-surface

    Replaced request-time sitemap lastmods on static, ranking, and guide pages with per-route page-vintage stamps derived from git history and CMS data vintage, so crawl dates reflect real page edits instead of a single shared extract stamp.

  2. · Index-surface

    Routed every sitemap loc through canonicalUrl so advertised URLs match the portal slash form and stop emitting thousands of form-mismatch pairs against live canonicals.

  3. · Index-surface

    Converted soft-404 hub redirects for unknown state, county, insurer, plan, and drug slugs into real 404 responses with noindex, so mistyped entity URLs stop looking like thin indexable pages.

  4. · Editorial correction

    Removed fabricated Editorial Team identity copy from author bylines and publisher cards, and aligned attribution to the honest solo-operated editorial process.

  5. · Index-surface

    Noindexed the 404 template so retired or mistyped URLs stop being served as indexable pages after hub removals.

  6. · Data integrity

    Hardened the ETL runner to refuse a full rebuild that would delete the database and then repopulate only the wired stages, protecting data stages that cannot be rebuilt from a single CMS extract.