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
- 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.
- 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.
Your comments and
suggestions are appreciated.
To cite this page:
Evaluating HTML Sites
<http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/html/evaluation.html>
[Monday, 23-Nov-2009 09:18:16 EST]
Edited by: wilkins@mps.ohio-state.edu on
Sunday, 20-Jun-2004 15:13:40 EDT