Checking Credibility of Websites

When having students use the internet to look up information or learn valuable information it is important for a teacher to talk them about the credibility of websites, because not all websites are credible.  One major way that I have found to check a website’s credibility is to check its URL address.  If the URL address starts with http:// and ends in .gov, .us or .(a state abbreviation) it is most likely credible.  This is a good way of determining because only information that has been processed and okayed by panels of either the government, state or country are able to be posted on these websites.  Often times people think that just making sure the website ends in .org, .net or something besides .com automatically makes the site credible, but only the above examples are most likely a guarantee to be credible.  Another way to check if websites are credible or not is to look at their resources.  Most often, if a website is credible, it will have credible resources listed.  These are only two ways to check if websites are credible and I am sure there are a few more, but the important thing is to make sure that your students understand that not everything on the internet is “true” and to make sure they know ways to check the credibility of their websites.