Selecting Search Engine Results

Consider the following points when reviewing web page listings retrieved by a search engine, so you can target the most promising pages to review. As you check particular web pages for their usefulness, use the guidelines listed in the Evaluating Information Checklist.

Search Engine Results Checklist:

Key words or related words listed and are related to your topic in title and/or summary (words used in the right context and support your side of the issue)?
Viewpoint related to your topic suggested by title and/or summary - e.g., religious, political, geographical, professional (e.g., Death Row Fact Sheet - Florida Department of Corrections (geographical) or U.S. Catholic Bishops' Statement on Capital Punishment (religious)?
Date listed (in the summary) meets need for currency?
If not, the page still may be worth viewing for further information. (NOTE: Dates listed after a summary are usually an indication of when the search engine last visited the page to update its index. See Search Engine Watch's Search Assistance Features information about dates.)
Page size (e.g., 23K) appropriate for your needs?
Shorter pages 5K or less may be too brief to offer much topic insight, while longer pages over 100K may be long lists of data with little organization. Long pages may take a while to load for viewing.
URL domain name or country code identifies desired resource (e.g., .edu, .com)?
(See URL/Domains for more information on reading parts of a URL)
(e.g., commercial - .com, educational - .edu, military - .mil, governmental -.gov, organizations - .org, and/or network and service providers - .net, air transport - .aero, business - .biz, cooperatives - .coop, any information - .info, museum - .museum, people - .name, and professionals - .pro (also note country codes used in URLs) - NOTE: Keep in mind that since 1996, .org, .net., and .com could be registered by non-commercial and commercial groups.
URL include additional information related to your topic?
(e.g., search for Africanized ("killer") honey bees – find http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/ENTO/May2101a.htm = Texas A&M Agriculture News article from May 21, 2001 = news about scientists studying the spread of "killer" bees) NOTE: Check the content of the page itself to see if the URL information seems to agree with information on the page.
(CAUTION: Personal opinion is rampant on the Web and may be identified by a URL containing a “~” or the words “thread”, “post”, “follow-up”, or “message” in title and/or summary.)