Put the source date and table update date beside the data

A published data table should answer three questions without making the reader hunt: where did these numbers come from, what date or period do they describe, and when did this table last change?

Put those answers directly below the table. A page publication date is not enough: a newly published article can contain a ranking snapshot from an earlier week or a medal record ending years earlier.

A table with the necessary labels

This example reproduces the first five places in the official ITTF men’s singles list for Week 39 of 2026.

ITTF men’s singles top five — Week 39, 2026

Rank	Player	Association	Points
1	Wang Chuqin	China	8,157
2	Felix Lebrun	France	7,479
3	Sora Matsushima	Japan	6,930
4	Tomokazu Harimoto	Japan	6,363
5	Truls Moregard	Sweden	5,805

Source: ITTF men’s singles ranking, 2026 Week 39. Ranking date: 21 September 2026. Coverage: Senior men’s singles, positions 1–5. Table updated: 22 September 2026.

That compact note does four separate jobs:

• Source identifies the original publisher and links to the exact list used, rather than the ITTF homepage.
• Ranking date identifies the edition represented. The ITTF labels this list “2026 Week 39 – 21st September 2026,” and its ranking archive lists earlier weekly editions separately.
• Coverage defines the reproduced slice. It stops “top five” being mistaken for the complete list and distinguishes senior men’s singles from women’s, youth, doubles and team data.
• Table updated records when the locally published values, calculations or coverage last changed.

Do not collapse every date into “last updated”

Choose the label that describes what happened:

• Ranking date or data as of: the date attached to a snapshot, such as an ITTF weekly list.
• Data through: the final tournament, season or year included in a cumulative records table.
• Last checked: when an editor most recently compared the table with its source but made no data change.
• Table updated: when rows, values, calculations or coverage in the table changed.
• Page updated: when the wider article changed, possibly without a change to the table.

These dates can legitimately differ. If an editor checks the Week 39 list on 25 September and makes no change, the note can say: “Ranking date: 21 September 2026. Last checked: 25 September 2026. Table updated: 22 September 2026.” Moving the table update date to 25 September would imply a change that did not happen.

For a historical table, name the last included competition rather than inventing a snapshot date:

Data through: 2025 Asian Championships. Table updated: 22 September 2026.

That wording makes the endpoint explicit even if the surrounding article changes later. The same principle applies to a complete Asian Championships medals table.

Link to the exact source version

A generic source label such as “ITTF” is too weak for a changing ranking. Link to the specific weekly list, document or results page from which the values were copied. If several official files were combined, list them or link to a concise methodology that maps each source to the relevant rows or periods.

This information establishes provenance: the origin and history readers need to assess the dataset. The W3C Data on the Web Best Practices recommends documenting a dataset’s origins and publisher-made changes, and assigning each version a number or date.

If the table includes an editorial calculation, label that separately:

Method: Points copied from the official list; point differences calculated by Ping Pong Rankings.

That sentence distinguishes official values from derived analysis. It matters for medal shares, ranking forecasts and combined records that do not appear in the source in the same form as the published table.

Use one consistent source-note pattern

For a ranking snapshot:

Source: [Exact official list]. Ranking date: [date shown on list]. Coverage: [discipline and rows]. Table updated: [date values or coverage last changed].

For a cumulative record:

Sources: [Exact official records]. Data through: [last included event or year]. Coverage: [events, categories and exclusions]. Method: [any local calculation]. Table updated: [date data or method last changed].

Keep the note immediately after the table. Before publishing, confirm that the link opens, the edition and discipline match the displayed values, the coverage statement accounts for every row, and the update label records a real change. That leaves the table understandable even after the underlying rankings move on.