A stale address claim should be corrected quickly without erasing the evidence needed to explain what changed.
Define the incident trigger
Examples include an unexpected redirect, ownership transition, source retraction or contradictory canonical.
A documented trigger prevents routine downtime from being treated as the same event.
Reduce exposure immediately
Remove actionable navigation and change the public record to pending while preserving a neutral explanation.
Do not replace the destination until the new claim has completed the full review.
Preserve a minimal evidence log
Record the previous status, observation time, changed signal and person or process that reviewed it.
Avoid storing credentials, personal data or unnecessary page copies.
Coordinate technical corrections
Update canonicals, sitemaps, internal links, structured data and search submissions when the public URL record changes.
Mixed signals can keep stale content discoverable after the visible page is corrected.
Close with a post-incident review
Document the root evidence gap, response timing and monitoring improvements.
The goal is to strengthen the process rather than make unsupported claims about intent.