Evaluating Websites
"The World Wide Web can be a great place to accomplish research on many topics. But putting documents or pages on the web is easy, cheap or free, unregulated, and unmonitored (at least in the USA)." - UC Berkeley, 2009
How can you determine if you have a "good" website?
Consider the characteristics and questions below to help evaluate sources on the web.
Authority and Accuracy
- Who publishes the website? Is this a well-know or respected institution?
- Is there contact information for authors of the website content? What is their background or credentials?
- Is it a commercial site (.com), a government site (.gov), an educational site (.edu), a non-profit or other organization (.org)? How does this affect the information presented?
- Do other reliable sites link to this one?
- Are facts, ideas or references credible and backed up by citations to the original sources?
Purpose and Objectivity
- What is the purpose of this site: to sell, inform, entertain or persuade?
- Who sponsors this website? What is their agenda or goal?
- For what audience is this site written?
- Is there an explicit or hidden bias behind the information presented?
- Is there advertising on the site? Does this influence information found on the site?
- Are arguments well-reasoned and supported?
Currency
- Is the information on the page up-to-date?
- Is the page updated regularly?
- Are there dead links?
