Checking the reliability of a website

OUR GUIDE

Knowing the source of an online news article is often crucial for assessing its reliability. For this reason, when you come across information on the Internet, it’s important to understand who is behind the website providing it.

In this article, we’ll explore a series of practices to help achieve this goal, enabling a better understanding of the context in which the news you’re reading was created.

“About us”: the first section to check on a website

Before sharing a news story on social media – or trusting it after reading – it’s a good idea to take a moment to browse the website, exploring its various sections. This approach can provide valuable insights into the origin and context of the information you are interested in.

The key section to look for is usually titled “About us” (or similar names, often “About”). Here, users can typically find the history of the website, its founders, its mission, and sometimes even how it is funded.

This initial step can reveal whether the publisher of a particular story might have a conflict of interest related to the content shared. For example, if an environmental news website is owned by a foundation linked to a major oil company, this should raise a red flag, prompting further scrutiny of the information. Notably, the absence of an “About us” section can also indicate the website may lack credibility.

Another section that can be helpful is the “Editorial team” page. This section often lists the names of the authors contributing to the website. Such details can be useful for conducting searches on search engines or social media to learn more about what a journalist or author has previously written, including how long they’ve been covering a specific topic. In some cases, this research might also reveal whether the website is legitimate or fake, such as one generated using artificial intelligence.

At Facta, we’ve reported how disinformation networks use AI to write dozens of articles attributed to hundreds of fake journalists with invented names, creating false news sites to spread entirely fabricated stories. If an online search for the names listed on the “Editorial team” page yields no meaningful results, it’s wise to question the reliability of the news on the site.

How to gather more information about a website

The above steps are just the beginning for critically evaluating news content. Free tools are also available to uncover additional information about a domain – the unique address identifying a website – such as when it was created, where it’s registered, and whether physical addresses are associated with its owners.

For instance, you can use Who.is, a website that allows users to search for domain-related information. As explained in one of our articles, entering the domain Facta.news into this tool reveals it was purchased in December 2019, the same time our organization conceived this editorial project. Similarly, searching for details about the domain of the Italian news agency ANSA reveals its address, contacts, and creation date.

The Verification Handbook, a guide on fact-checking and countering misinformation, mentions several similar tools, such as BigDomainData, DNSlytics, Security Trails, and Whoisology.

Using such simple practices, Facta has uncovered numerous coordinated propaganda efforts, such as Russian campaigns against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his family. For example, we discovered that a fake website spreading false stories about President Zelensky had been created just days earlier as a disinformation tool.

Finally, there are editorial and journalistic initiatives that provide precise assessments of a website’s credibility, such as NewsGuard. This project monitors media outlets, analyzes misinformation dynamics globally, and assigns reliability ratings to news sources based on journalistic criteria.

However, assessing the reliability of a website ultimately depends on specific cases, and it’s crucial to maintain a critical perspective, especially when encountering unfamiliar sources for the first time.