Evaluating Web Pages

Techniques to apply and

questions to ask

• 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

What can the URL tell you?What can the URL tell you?

• What type of domain extension does the site What type of domain extension does the site have?have?

- Government sites: look for .gov, .mil, .us

- Educational sites: look for .edu

- Nonprofit organizations: look for .org

Is the domain extension appropriate for the content of the material you are looking for?

- Commercial site: look for .com

• What is the domain name?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?

- Does the domain name correspond with the name of the site

Example: http://www.fda.gov/medwatch.html

-If not, open a search engine and do a search of the domain name.

Scan the page looking for answers Scan the page looking for answers to these questions:to these questions:

• Who wrote the page?- Look for links that say About Us, Philosophy,

Background

- Truncate back the URL trying to find this kind of information

Example:

http://www.weather.com/newscenter/stormwatch/index.html

- Look for names of people, organizations, groups that claim responsibility

• 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.

• When was the page written?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?

Look for indicators of quality Look for indicators of quality information.information.

• Look for words like Links, Additional Sites, Related Links, 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.

• Is the text grammatically correct and free of typos?

What do others say?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.

What can the link information tell you?What can the link information tell you?

- Check how many links there are. Many links means that the site is valuable to others.

- Read the information about the sites that link to the page. Does the information deal with your topic or the topic of the page?

- Check the domain extensions of the linking sites. What types of sites link to the page?

•Look up the author or the organization Look up the author or the organization enclosed in quotation marks in enclosed in quotation marks in Google.comGoogle.com

- Is there any information that may be helpful?

- It may also be helpful to type in the article title in quotation marks after the author.

Does it all add up?Does it all add up?

• Why was the page put on the web?

- Information/Facts

- Persuasion

- Sales tool

- Other

•Have you checked facts and statistics in a Have you checked facts and statistics in a non-internet source such as a library non-internet source such as a library book, an encyclopedia, or a textbook?book, an encyclopedia, or a textbook?

- Does the information agree?

Now here is the last and most Now here is the last and most important question.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?