Part 4 - Recognition

1) LINKS


You should determine what others think about a particular web site
to assist you in your final evaluation.

Ask yourself:

Do others recognize the value of the site by providing links to it or through written reviews?

To accomplish this, you can locate other web pages that link to the web site that pique your interest.  For example,
both AltaVista and Google allow you to search for sites that "link" to a particular URL.

The image below illustrates the number of pages (3,180) that link to the American Psychological Society web site, (www.psychologicalscience.org)

Once you have located the pages that link to your web site, you should do the following:

 
Consider:
  • The total number of links.
  • What types of links are they?  Who are they?
  • What do the links have to say about the overall site, the author, or the publisher?
  • Are any of the pages directories?  Inclusion in a good directory can be noteworthy, but it will be up to you
    to make the final determination.

 

2) LOCATING A REVIEW OF A WEBSITE

Check to see whether a Web site has been reviewed and chosen for inclusion in one of the more selective Web directories such as:

(Refer to the "Help" feature of each site for descriptive information.)

3) TOOLS TO ASSIST YOUR EVALUATION

You can find information about a Web site that you are viewing using a function that has been built into your browser.  You can then discover:

If you use Internet Explorer, choose Tools from the browser menu, then highlight Show Related Links to see a display of related web sites. An example of this feature is shown below.  This information is provided by Alexa, an Internet research company.

    

Should your computer utilize Netscape, click on the What's Related button in the browser's toolbar for similar results.

Another tool that provides similar information is the AllTheWeb URL Investigator.  Enter a URL in the search box to observe how this works.  The URL www.kings.edu is used for the following illustration.

 

Suggested Activity

Use Google to determine how many sites have made links to the following:

Email your findings to your Instructor at mfpriebe@kings.edu with the
Subject webeval07.

    [Links to this activity open in new browser window.]

Be sure to go back to the Web Evaluation Table of Contents to complete the Self-Quiz, Test Your Knowledge!

As a review, you can play the game on the following page as a fun way to test your knowledge of web site evaluation.

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Evaluating Web Sites

Glossary | Checklist | Links | Help