Look Beneath the Surface

Reading "About Us" on a Website

When you read information on the web, many websites look similar and provide similar structures in the way their pages are organized. For example, you may have been taught at some point to read the "About" section of a website. It may tell you more about the authors of a site, or the board members of an organization, or the mission statement of a company. This information might be useful.

Who wrote it?

However, do you ever stop to think about who created the "About" section? That's right: the company or organization wrote that information about themselves. Would they write anything bad about themselves? Wouldn't they present themselves in the best possible way? Wouldn't you, if you were writing an "About Me" section of your very own website? So, how do we know if we can believe what they say? There is a high likelihood of positive "spin," at best, and even a possibility of outright lies, in the very worst case scenario.

To build your case for credibility, you need to look beneath the surface. On the surface, the website will be polished and designed to make them look as good as possible. Luckily, there are some simple techniques you can use to fact-check the credibility and authority of the information on any website. The method outlined here is adapted from Mike Caulfield's helpful book, Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers Links to an external site..

CC photo courtesy of jimbomack66 on Flickr Links to an external site.

Techniques for Web Fact-Checking

Read Laterally: What do other people say about this website? When in doubt about your website as a source, check Google for other websites that may have information about it.

If you search for a website name on Google, you might get lots of results from that same site. But if you subtract their domain from the search, you can find out what others say.

For example:  If you want to find out more about livescience.com, use the minus (-) symbol and the site: operator to subtract this site from your results in Google.

(Curious about the site: operator? Check out this page to learn more advanced Google search strategies. Links to an external site.)

Look Up the Domain Registrar on WHOIS: Find out who owns the website, how long it has been online, and whether or not the site ownership is masked or transparent.

For example: If we would like to see who owns Mother Jones Links to an external site., an online news site, we can use the WHOIS search to find out more about them.

If you notice a domain-masking service listed as the registrar, such as "Domains by Proxy" for instance, let that be a red flag to you as well. Domains by Proxy Links to an external site. is an inexpensive service, which a domain owner can buy, for the purpose of masking who really owns the site.

On the WHOIS page, it will also be worth noting the date the website was created. If it claims to be an established newspaper, but it was only created within the last couple of years, that's less than trustworthy. 

 

Look for Previous Fact-Checking Work: Can you find out if any of the claims made on the page are false? This is most helpful when you are skeptical about facts or information that might be presented for political persuasion. Look up the information on well-respected fact-checking sites like Snopes Links to an external site., Politifact Links to an external site.and Truth Be Told Links to an external site..

 

These are just three of the techniques you can use to determine the credibility of a website, beyond reading the "About" section. For more ideas, refer to Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers Links to an external site..