Evaluating Web Pages

1. Evaluating Web Pages Evaluating Web Pages Techniques to apply and questions to ask

2. What can the URL tell you? • Is it somebody’s personal page? Check for a personal name or a ~, %, or the words users, members, or people Personal pages are not necessarily bad, but you need to make sure you investigate the author more carefully

3. What type of domain extension does the site have? - Government sites: look for .gov, .mil, .us - Educational sites: look for .edu - Nonprofit organizations: look for .org - Commercial site: look for .com Is the domain extension appropriate for the content of the material you are looking for?

4. What is the domain name? - Check the area of the URL between the http://www.and the first / - Have you heard of the domain name before? • If not, open a search engine and do a • search of the domain name. - Does the domain name correspond with the name of the site Example: http://www.fda.gov/medwatch.html

5. Scan the page looking for answers to these questions: • Who wrote the page? - Look for links that say About Us, Philosophy, Background - Look for names of people, organizations, groups that claim responsibility - Truncate back the URL trying to find this kind of information Example: http://www.weather.com/newscenter/stormwatch/index.html

6. Is there an e-mail address for the person, group, or organization for further contact? • What credentials does the author or group have to be an expert on this subject? Remember: Truncate back if there is no information on the page.

7. When was the page written? - Look for a date created section • Look for a date updated section. • Is this current enough for your needs or might more recent information be better?

8. Look for indicators of quality information. • Is the text grammatically correct and free of typos? • Look for words likeLinks,AdditionalSites,RelatedLinks, etc. • Look for links in the web pages text. Check the links to see if the links work and if they are relevant to the content of the original page.

9. What do others say? • Who links to this page? - Copy the URL of the page you are investigating - Go to Google.com - Type in link: - Paste the URL of the site immediately following link: - Click on Go or press the Enter Key.

10. What can the link information tell you? • Check how many links there are. Many links means that the site is valuable to others. - Check the domain extensions of the linking sites. What types of sites link to the page? - Read the information about the sites that link to the page. Does the information deal with your topic or the topic of the page?

11. Is the page rated in a directory? - Copy the URL of the page. - Go to http://lii.org and select the advanced search. - In the advanced search select a URL search. - Paste in the webpage address into the search box. - Truncate back and do another search if there are no hits. - Read what the ratings say. The opinions may not always be positive.

12. Look up the author or the organization enclosed in quotation marks in Google.com - It may also be helpful to type in the article title in quotation marks after the author. - Is there any information that may be helpful?

13. Does it all add up? • Why was the page put on the web? - Information/Facts - Persuasion - Sales tool - Other

14. Have you checked facts and statistics in a non-internet source such as a library book, an encyclopedia, or a textbook? - Does the information agree?

15. Now here is the last and most important question. Is this web page as good or better than what you could find in a journal article, library database, book, or other published literature that is not on the free, general web?