Types of Web Pages
The World Wide Web is an extraordinarily rich source of information. However, sifting through documents retrieved from the vastness of cyberspace can be a daunting task. It is not unusual to find a mixture of invalid, authoritative, biased, or objective information among your search results. Savvy searchers identify web page "types" and apply evaluation criteria to help locate high quality information that supports their research topic.
What does the URL (Web address) say about the producer of the web site, and its purpose?
| .gov | Government agency |
| .net | Internet Service Provider |
| .com | Commercial site |
| .edu | Higher education |
| .mil | Military site |
| .org | Organization; may be charitable, religious, or a lobbying group |
Anyone is able to get a .net, .com, or .org account. However, .gov and .mil sites are limited to government agencies and .edu sites are limited to higher education organizations. Because of these limitations, .gov and .edu sites tend to be more reliable than other sites.
- Country names appear as a two-letter abbreviation in the domain name. For a complete list, go to Domain Name Registries around the World.
- New domain names include .museum, .info and .biz, among others. Read more about them at InterNic FAQ on Domain Names.
Web Search Hint: You can limit web searches by these designations by using the site: feature. For instance, if you want to search for economic statistics but wanted your results to be limited to government sites you can search economic statistics site:.gov to limit your results to government websites. Similarly, if you are looking for information on military benefits, you might search benefits site:.mil to uncover all military web site information on benefits.