POLS 1101: American Government

A domain name suffix (the last letters of a web address), reveal a lot about the type of website. Here are a few common domain name suffixes:

 .com - Commercial

 .org - Non-profit

 .gov - Government website

 .edu - Educational

*Note: Other countries use specific domain names. For example sites that end in .ca are Canada, and sites that end in .au are from Australia.

When you search the Web, you’re going to find a lot of information . . . but is it accurate and reliable? You will have to determine this for yourself, and the CRAAP Test can help. The CRAAP Test is a list of questions you can ask yourself in order to determine if the information on a website is reliable. CRAAP is an acronym for:

Currency - Is the material current? Does it contain outdated or disproven information? Is the site maintained regularly?​
Relevance - Is the material relevant to your question?​
Author - Who wrote the content? What are the author's qualifications? Is there a way to contact the author?​
Accuracy - How accurate is the information? What evidence does the author use? Does the author cite sources?​
Purpose - What is the purpose of the content? Is the content objective or biased?