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Because anybody can create a website on the World Wide Web, you can’t always trust the information on them – they could contain lots of mistakes or be biased towards a particular viewpoint, for example.
Here are some questions you could ask yourself to check how reliable and helpful the information on a web page is:
| Who is the author? | You can usually trust school and government websites. |
| What date was it put online? | More recent web pages are likely to be more accurate. (Be aware of those made on April 1st as they could contain April Fools Day jokes!) |
| Who is the intended audience? | Websites for children usually look colourful and have easy-to-read text in a big font size. Some ISPs filter or block access to unsuitable sites. |
| Is the content relevant? | Look at the sub-headings and at any images to see what topic they are about. |
| Is the information biased? | Biased information describes only one opinion about something. Examples are companies pretending their products are better than their rivals and people describing what they personally think about something (e.g. a film review). |
It is usually best to compare different websites to help check the reliability of their information – lots of sites containing similar information is more likely to be accurate than lots of sites containing contrasting information.