How To Find Reputable Reference Resources Online
The internet may quite possibly be one of the greatest modern inventions. Nearly anything can be researched with a search engine and a few key words. The difficult part is wading through all the possible matching sites that come up. It’s important to be sure to find the most credible sites to use as reference material.
The first indicator of a site’s creditability is what domain it is using. The range in credibility from highest to lowest is: gov, edu, net, org, com.
Gov: This domain is supported by governmental fact checking and represents an entity in the government.
Edu: This domain is supported by an educational institution.
Net: This domain is used by a network of computers. These sites are generally the source of material.
Org: This domain is used by organizations that don’t necessarily fit under other categories. This is where the credibility of internet resources can be questionable.
Com: This domain is used namely by businesses. The com stands for commercial use. These websites are usually created to increase revenue and as such can have questionable information.
The reason the credibility hierarchy is designed in this way is based on who can purchase these domains and the simplicity of acquiring them. A gov or an edu must be obtained with a license or application. Net, org, and com can be purchased right over the internet for a small monthly fee. After this fee is paid the owners of these website domains can produce whatever type of material they would like. In general the net organizations can periodically be reviewed and checked for credibility. This is not to say com, org, and net material cannot be used as references materials. It is only suggesting finding two sources with the same material to have verification.Keep looking, there’s more: Deciding on a Quality Url of your website.