Due to the increasing content and accessibility of the internet, it has been a common and most accessible reference in all kind of research, specially, in academic research. But as a webmaster, I suggest not to always trust the content of the internet as your reference in your researches simply because not all published websites in the internet are reliable source of information and data. It is very easy to create and publish a website, and thus also easy to publish false or incomplete information.

During this time where so much websites are created everyday and published in the internet, the competition among website publishers to gain popularity in the internet increases such that they employ some kind of unnatural method of gaining popularity in search engines, thereby making them popular even if they are not really a good and reliable one.

The entry of internet marketing, specially the contextual advertising, also, greatly reduces the quality of websites listed in the search engine results. Many website publishers today make a website just for the sake of making money out of it, even if the content of the website is not well researched or not reliable enough in facts and analysis.

But, on the other hand, there are still many websites that contains reliable data and information that can assist everyone in there research and analysis. And the first thing that you can do if you want internet as your reference in your research is to filter out low quality websites that has no other intent but just to make money in their websites.

The following are some information that will help you justify and qualify if a website that appears in your search engine result is reliable and can be use as a reference;

1. Use only websites that are called by webmasters as “authority websites”. Authority websites are websites that has more authority, and thereby more reliable, to provide information that are related to that field. For example, if you want to research about the “space explorations”, the authority websites may be the website of the website of National Aeronautics and Space Administration. As an additional information, authority websites usually have a .edu and .gov domains. But there are also authority websites that has a .com, .org, or .net extension. Among the three top search engines, Google.com has a more advance algorithm in determining on what should be the right authority websites that match in your search query.

2. Don’ t trust so much those websites that are hosted for free by free web hosting services like netfirms and geocities. Aside from the facts that we don’t know who created the website, it may also contain incomplete information because such websites are usually made just for a hobby or for fun. But still, there are also some websites of this kind that contain some useful information, so you have to analyze it first if it can be a good reference.

3. Another good reference is the “official website” of an entity or organization with a known identity. For example, if you want to have a research about “labor movement in the Philippines”, then you may look for the official website of any labor organizations in the Philippines like KMU or BMP. Just make sure that it is their official website. Don’t just trust websites that you don’t have any idea who made it.

4. If you really want to have a serious research, avoid websites that contain so many advertisements. This kind of websites are usually made for advertising purposes only, specially if the advertisements appear almost in the middle of the webpage. The content of this kind of websites are made just to balance the interest of the website publishers, which is to publish an advertisement. It may contain some information but usually not reliable because the one who write on that website is not really an expert of that field. It is just his/her ideas with some facts on it just to make it look useful.

My main point here is to deeply analyze first if a certain website is a reliable source of information. The information that I mentioned above is a relatively very strict criteria of selecting websites just for the sake of having a good references in your research. You can still use other websites that I excluded in the above criteria but you have to determine first if it is reliable enough. But the problem is, how do you know that is it reliable?