Evaluating HTML Sites

Check List for preliminary evaluation

• Do you know the source? If not, be cautious.
  • You can go to rs.intrnic.net and do search using broad spectrum of search engines. See search engines and meta search engines for descriptions.
  • There is an ad-supported web navigation/search software Alexa (free for NT, Windows95/98 and Mac) that more easily yields source info.
• Is it objective? Does it offer alternate points of view?
• When was it last revised? With Netscape, click View option and go to Page Info. Some pages (such as mine in early 1998) self document this info.
• What is site address ending? Com=commercial, org=not-for-profit organization, gov=government, edu=educational. Foreign sites have different suffixes: ca=Canada, uk=United Kingdom, jp=Japan, etc.
• Warning signs.
  • Banner ads. Will they color your impressiion of the material?
  • Tilde in address. The symbol (as in mine: ~wilkins) indicates it a personal home page. Other clues to personal pages are "geocities," "tripod," or "members.aol.com."
  • Long complicated web address. Try backing up slash by slash to see where you are and what other information is there.
  • Look at hyperlinks. These occur at bottom of page and tell you where page is directing you. The better pages point outwould as well as inward.
  • Print material references? Look for sites that refer to print and other off-line sources.
  • Many spelling/punctation errors? Lack of attention to such details could indicate less-than-rigorous content.
  • Correction page? Some sites (e.g., www.cnet.com) includes a page of corrections which is rare but appreciated.
• Unfamiliar authors. Try running their names through a major search engine to learn about them.
• Contact the authors. Consider contacting web site owner directly -- by email or phone, either given on the site or resulting from internet search suggested just above. If you have doubts or questions about site or its creator's credential, contact the individual. Solid sites will always respond.

Guides for Web Researcher

• Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resource, Esther Grassian, UCLA College Library.
• Information Quality on the Internet: Verfiability
• Evaluation Web Pages
• Practical Steps in Evaluating Internet Resources
• The Virtual Chase: A research site for legal professionals

Search Engines

• Excite. Broad general searches, with extras (not always relevant) to news headlines, sport scores, company information.
• Yahoo. Broad general searches. Now improving; still not excellent for science searches.
• Infoseek. Smaller index than others. Good for searching for Web pages, news, and Usenet postings.
• Ask Jeeves!. Excellent beginner's site, general queries.
• Hotbot. Excellent for specific information.
• Lycos. Good selection of advanced search capabilties. Not so good on general searches.
• Northern Light. Index of Web pages. Also searches pay-per-view articles not generally available.
• Alta Vista. Good for precise searches. Quick and easy, but may have many duplicates.

Meta Search Engines

• Dogpile. Uses 13 search engines and sorts results by engine. Good for checking search engines against each other.
• Metacrawler. Searches Yahoo, Excite and 5 other search engines simultaneously.
• Internet Sleuth. Collection of 3,000 databases which can simultaneously search up to six other search sites - results not sorted intuitively.