Evaluating Web Sites

The burden, therefore, is on the researcher, the person using these internet sites, to determine the validity, authorship, coverage, and integrity of the web page.

The majority of the web pages found by a general search engine or subject directory are self-published or published by businesses with some sort of commercial interest in mind. Some may be published by research organizations or universities. However, even within university and professional web sites, there can be many pages that the institution does not try to oversee.

To evaluate a web site (and determine if you want to use it for your research) look for:

• Authority:
  Can you tell who or what organization is responsible for the contents of the page?
  Can you verifying the existence of this organization? Can you find it in other sources (Encyclopedia of Organizations)?
  Does the content of the page has the official approval of the organization?
  If it is an individual, can you tell who that person is?
  What is that person’s background? What can you find out about this individual? Does the author list verifiable credentials or other background information? Can you contact the individual?
  
  
• URL:
  What can the URL tell you about this web page?
  Remember, .com, .net and .org extensions are available to ANYBODY. They are not a good indicator of the creator of the web page.
  .edu and .gov extensions are more closely regulated and usually indicate an education institution or a U.S. government site.
  ~ - indicates a personal subdirectory. You may see an address such as www.harvard.edu/~smith/ which indicates that although it is an educational institution (.edu) the information is within a personal directory and may therefore not be approved or even associated with the institution hosting the web page.
  Countries other than the US are usually indicated by a 2 letter country code at the end of the domain. This does not indicate the web page is government sponsored or approved.
  
  
• Purpose:
  What is the mission of this web page? Is this clearly stated? Does the web page have a purpose? To inform, entertain, advocate, advertise, convert, persuade, etc.?
  Are arguments or claims on the web page supported with legitimate, current or otherwise verifiable documentation?
  
  
• Accuracy:
  Can you verify facts or information on this web page in another source?
  Is the information free of grammatical, spelling, and typographical errors? (These kinds of errors not only indicate a lack of quality control, but can actually produce inaccuracies in information.)
  Can you tell if there is an editor or fact-checker who as verified the page?
  
  
• Objectivity:
  Does the author of the web page have a "vested interest" in the topic?
  If there is any advertising on the page? Is it clearly differentiated from the informational content? Does the advertiser sponsor the page?
  Does the page cover both sides of an issue? Is there a minimum of bias?
  
  
• Currency:
  Are there dates on the page to indicate:
  When the page was written?
  When the page was first published on the Web?
  When the page was last revised? Note that many pages automatically place the current date on the page. This is NOT an indication that the page is updated daily.
  Is the site well maintained? Are there many broken links?
  Is there a maintenance policy or other indication of how often the page is updated?
  
  
• Coverage:
  Is there an indication that the page has been completed or is it still under construction?
  Does the site cover aspects of the topic that are not covered elsewhere?
  Can you determine the depth of coverage of the topic?
  How does the coverage compare to other resources on the same topic?
  
  
• Recognition:
  Has the site won any awards? What kind? From whom?
  Is the site listed by quality subject directories or search engines?
  Please note that many pages have “hit counters” somewhere on the page. This is not an accurate count of how many people have used the web site and should not be considered an indication of the usefulness or accuracy of the page.
  

Last Updated: 04/09/2004