Anyone can publish on the Web, and unreliable sites often masquerade as legitimate sources of information. As you scan through search results, look for the following clues about the probable relevance, currency, and reliability of a site. Be aware that the clues are by no means foolproof.
Title, keywords, and lead-in text (How relevant?)
A date (How current?)
An indication of the site’s sponsor or purpose (How reliable?)
The URL, especially the domain name: .com, .edu, .gov, or .org (How relevant? How reliable?)
Sample evaluation of Web search results
Luisa Mirano used the keyword childhood obesity in a search engine; she limited her search to works with those words in the title.
Search results for childhood obesity
Mirano found the first site, which was sponsored by a research-based organization, promising enough to explore for her paper.
The second and fourth sites held less promise, because they seemed to offer popular rather than scholarly information. In addition, the KidSource site was populated by advertisements.
Mirano rejected the third source not because of its reliability—in fact, research from the National Institutes of Health was what she was looking for—but because a quick skim of its contents revealed that the information was too general for her purposes.
Determining if a source is scholarly
Comparison of a scholarly vs. a popular source