Evaluating Websites

When you run a search online, some of the items that may turn up at or near the top include:

• Advertised links - someone has paid for this placement
• Articles from "content farms" - someone has investigated common search terms and paid a fee to a writer to produce an article. eHow is an example of a content farm.
• Wikipedia articles - some are great, others are not - and sometimes it's hard to tell!
• Social media "answer" sites - like Answers.com, Yahoo Answers, etc. Many of these pages are blank, those that have answers may be of questionable quality, and most don't have an author or any kind of information telling you where they got their info or what makes them an "expert."

So it's up to you to evaluate the website. How do you start? I like the A-B-C-D-E approach. The letters stand for:

• Author or Authority - experts or amateurs?
• Bias and Balance - What is the site's purpose and point of view?
• Content - appropriate, accessible, etc.?
• Date - is it current? how much does it matter?
• Evaluation - is this site reliable or questionable?