Evaluating Web Pages

The unfiltered, free-form nature of the Web presents unique challenges to determining the credibility of the sources you find. Anyone can create a website with anything they want. The overall quality and types of bias that you find on a site are often, but not always, related to the domain.

.edu domain:

  • Educational site
  • Information from an educational institution
  • Example: epss.ucla.edu

.gov domain:

.org domain:

  • Organization/non-profit site
  • Promote advocacy
  • Example: plos.org

.com domain:

Note: An "updated date" on a web page does not necessarily mean the information was updated...it could just mean a typo was fixed.