Don’t Bet on It!Internet Savvy

By Hazel Peterson, Librarian Molina High School, Dallas ISD

www.dallasisd.org/athleticsTo get information from the URL, ask these three questions:• What is the domain name?• What is the extension?• Is this a personal page?

What’s In a URL?

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.

Domain Name

• 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 special-interest sites or commercial sites.

http://www.bigredhair.com/robots/index.html What is this .com’s purpose?

Extensions

www.dallasisd.org/athletics

.edu       Educational organization (most US universities).k12       US school site (not all US schools use this).ac         Academic institution (outside of US).sch        School site (schools outside of the US use this).com      Company (usually .co in the UK).org        Any organization.gov       Government agency.net        Network.mil        Military institutions

Types of Extensions

Can include a country or state code.uk – United Kingdom.us – United States

Full List:http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/text/web_country_codes.html

More about Extensions

What a difference an extension makes?

www.moises.molina.net

What a difference an extension makes?

www.moises.molina.com

• 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/di/intro.html

Personal Web Page

You can often find the owner or publisher of a website by using the Whois? Database.http://www.martinlutherking.orgWARNING!!(This site may contain offensive information.)

Who is the Publisher?

• 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

martinlutherking.org

www.easywhois.comHow to find the publisher

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:+

And the publisher is…..

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.

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

What is the History of the Site?

History of martinlutherking.org

• Note the changes. • Do you see anything

that warns you of the content of thesite?

• Would you be likely to open this site to use the information for research?• How does this site compare to the newer one?

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

What external links can you find?

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?

3 Questions to Validate External Links

Go to www.google.comIn 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?

How to Locate Links

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/cat/cat.htmlType in the URL, then truncate it back to see how the site changes.

Truncating when searching

• 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

Is it important to evaluate a site?

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.