Don’t Bet on It!
By Hazel Peterson, Librarian
Molina High School, Dallas ISD
What’s In a URL?
www.dallasisd.org/athletics
To get information from the URL, ask
these three questions:
• What is the domain name?
• What is the extension?
• Is this a personal page?
Domain Name
www. dallasisd.org /athletics
The domain name follows the www
and comes before the first slash ( / ).
It tells you who sponsors the page. You
can sometimes tell about the reliability
of the information from the name of
the sponsor.
Extensions
• May provide more reliable information than
others, but there are no guarantees
• More reliable are .edu, .gov, .k12.
• Watch out for .com, .org, .net. Keep in mind
that while some of these sites may provide
good information, they are able to be
purchased by anyone and may be specialinterest sites or commercial sites.
http://www.bigredhair.com/robots/index.html
What is this .com’s purpose?
Types of Extensions
www.dallasisd.org/athletics
.edu
.k12
.ac
.sch
.com
.org
.gov
.net
.mil
Educational organization (most US universities)
US school site (not all US schools use this)
Academic institution (outside of US)
School site (schools outside of the US use this)
Company (usually .co in the UK)
Any organization
Government agency
Network
Military institutions
More about Extensions
Can include a country or state code
.uk – United Kingdom
.us – United States
Full List:
http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/text/web_co
untry_codes.html
What a difference an extension makes?
www.moises.molina.net
What a difference an extension makes?
www.moises.molina.com
Personal Web Page
•
Is a website created by an individual
•
May or may not be reliable, often
biased
•
Usually has a personal name following
a tilde (~) or a percent sign (%)
http://pubweb.northwestern.edu/~abutz/d
i/intro.html
Who is the Publisher?
You can often find the owner or
publisher of a website by using the
Whois? Database.
http://www.martinlutherking.org
WARNING!!
(This site may contain offensive
information.)
martinlutherking.org
• Looks innocent
• Has a .org extension
• Found near the top of results when
researching Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr.
• Includes Dr. King’s name right in
URL
How to find the publisher
www.easywhois.com
And the publisher is…..
Registrant ID:
Registrant Name:
Registrant Organization:Stormfront
Registrant Street1:
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:West Palm Beach
Registrant State/Province:FL
Registrant Postal Code:33405
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+
Google the publisher
As you read the material on the site, you will find very
negative and misleading information about Dr. King. It is
published by a White Pride organization called
Stormfront. In fact because it is a hate site, it will be
blocked by many Internet filters.
What is the History of the Site?
When looking at sites, you may want
to see what it looked like earlier in its
lifetime. Using the Wayback Machine,
you can see a site throughout its
lifetime.
http://www.archive.org
History of martinlutherking.org
• Note the changes.
• Do you see anything
that warns you of
the content of the
site?
• Would you be likely
to open this site to
use the information
for research?
• How does this site
compare to the
newer one?
What external links can you find?
External links:
• Come from other sites linked to the
one you are viewing
• Can be made by anyone else in the
world
• Invisible
• Linked to a website from an external
source
3 Questions to Validate External Links
1. What types of sites are linked to this
website?
2. What is the purpose of the link? Why
have these groups or individuals chosen
to link to this site?
3. What do other sites (those linked to this
one) say about the information on the
site?
How to Locate Links
Go to www.google.com
In the search box, type link: and then add
the URL of the site you would like to
research. Be sure to add http:// to the URL.
link:http://www.dallasisd.org
• How many external links are there?
• What types are there?
Truncating when searching
If searching for a URL and you receive no
results, truncate the URL. Truncating means
removing one folder at a time, moving from
the last one. A folder is the information in
the URL between slashes.
http://improbable.com/airchives/classical/c
at/cat.html
Type in the URL, then truncate it back to
see how the site changes.
Is it important to evaluate a site?
• Verifies the information
• Shows the validity of its use in your
research project
• Keeps you away from the 98%
garbage-level information found on
the Web
• Keeps you from using bogus
information
Remember:
Databases contain verified information
on academic topics. Use a database
first.
If you have to search the web, search
wisely using the tips you have been
given to evaluate the site.