WordYard
The Web is no doubt a valuable place to find sources and information, but how can you verify that the sites you’re visiting are credible? Scott Rosenberg provides some answers to this question in a recent blog post about evaluating unknown sources. It’s his way, he said, of taking the traditional “discipline of verification” that lies at the heart of journalism and modifying it to fit the new media world. Here’s a sampling of the 13 tips he offers:
- Look the domain name up with whois to see whether the registration information is available or hidden.
- Look up the site in the Internet Archive to see how it’s changed over the years.
- Check to see if the site tells you who runs it.
- Look at the comments. If they’re full of spam, it may be that no one is monitoring the site.
- Contact the site’s author. Whether or not someone responds could be another indicator of just how credible the site really is.
Here are some stories related to verifying credibility:
- “How to Verify a Tweet,” Craig Kanalley
- “How to Lose Your Gut,” Craig Silverman
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