Quick ways to check the quality of information you find online by looking at the content and creator.
Information assessment : URLs
When retrieving information from the Internet (as well as other sources) is it useful to have a strategy which will help in judging the validity and reliability of the information.
With websites, the first and perhaps simplest thing to check is the URL (or address) of the page/site. This can yield a fair amount of useful information.
Type of publication
What type of information does the webpage contain? The following list provides a rough-and-ready selection of conventional ‘domain types’ which form part of the address of a webpage, though these are implemented less and less
| Abbreviation | Meaning |
| ac | academic institution (UK) |
| biz | business (not yet widely used) |
| co | commercial organisation (uk) |
| com | commercial organisation (rest of world) |
| edu | educational institution (non UK) |
| gov | government information |
| ~ | personal webpage |
Country of origin
Usually, the URL will also contain a reference to the country in which the webpage was published. Where there is no country-code, the information originates in the United States of America.
Publisher
The part of the website address immediately following the www, indicates the publisher of the information. This is often the organisation or it may be nothing more ‘reliable’ than a server belonging to a particular internet service provider such as AOL, Geocities, BT or TalkTalk.
Information assessment : writers and publishers
Further checks on the information source/provider are needed before you are able to 'trust' the supplied information. These might include :
Who produced/published the information?
There may be an ‘About us’, ‘Philosophy’ or ‘Background’ link which provides this information. This should detailthe author, the organisation or agency who is responsible for the information on the site.
Is this person/organisation sufficiently qualified/knowledgeable to be providing the information?
Is the information current?
Most reputable sites have a ‘Last updated’ section – this will help you decide whether the information is too old to be of use in your information search.
Links
A ‘good’ website incorporates a well-organised and detailed set of authoritative links presenting a variety of viewpoints on the same topic. All links should be active and the linked materials accessible.
References
Information includes valid footnotes and bibliographies. These are to ‘real’ resources and not to non-existent ‘information’ created from the imagination of the page author.
Linked to
Are there other pages/sites on the Internet which link to the resource you’re assessing?
And finally, what is the purpose of the page? Is it intended to inform? to sell something? to persuade others to the author's point of view?
All of these questions and suggestions can be applied to most information sources and can help researchers decide whether a particular source is worthy of inclusion in an information search.
Understanding Health Research is a tool that has been developed to aid the understanding of health research. It guides you through a series of questions to help you to review and interpret a published health research paper.