2. Credentials of the Author

Trustworthy websites generally provide sufficient information to identify the author of the material. Typical examples of credible authors would include professors at accredited institutions of higher learning, professional researchers, and individuals who are acknowledged experts in their fields. Ideally, credible websites will provide enough biographical information about authors to verify their authority independently. Unreliable websites may not list any author or they may provide nothing more than informal information without any basis for establishing the expertise of the author.

3. Referenced Information

Credible websites usually provide a formal list of references for the information presented that includes traditional scholarly sources such as articles published in peer-reviewed academic and professional journals and periodicals. Those references should provide sufficient information to allow readers to locate those sources independently. Unreliable websites may provide...

Links to other Authoritative Sources
Credible websites typically provide numerous links to other authoritative websites and websites maintained by other organizations with whom they are affiliated. Unreliable websites are often stand-alone sites that do not link to any other sites maintained by any other organizations.

5. Currency of Information

Finally, even websites that were perfectly credible and authoritative when they were first published or last updated may be left online without being updated for years. Certain fields (especially in technological sciences, medicine, and law) are always evolving which means that knowledge that was state of the art only a few years ago will be seriously our of date if it is not updated for several years. Therefore, it is always important to make sure that websites relied upon for information are current and up-to-date.