Don’t Believe Everything You Read
How to Tell if Online Claims Are True or Not
Every day, we hear about scams and outrageous online claims. At the same time, we count on the Internet and its vast network of content suppliers to keep us up-to-date on trends and news affecting our families, communities and businesses. Many people rely on the credibility of a blog to make important life decisions.
We’ve always amazed at some of the stuff people fall for. But we question our own gullibility every day. If you believe the horrendous online claims of parents whose children were permanently damaged by vaccines, why don’t you give blog credibility to the likes of third-world country posts that show kids with no teeth who’ve never been exposed to fluoride?
Do Your Homework
As a company that prides itself on accuracy, Ray Access finds this is an especially pertinent question. To find our way through the maze of information and online claims, we take extra precautions to use only reliable sources. For example, to write about a medical issue, Ray Access writers are not allowed to use WebMD as a source. Wikipedia and YouTube are never allowed as credible sources. These sites have zero blog credibility because they are open-source and anyone can add content to them. Others, like WebMD, hire out cheap writing labor to fill their pages.
We might find an interesting tidbit on a site that’s notorious for spreading rumors that aren’t always backed up by science or history or true experts in the field. We may want to believe that little gem of information, but we cannot take the chance that it could be fraudulent. Yet just as easily, it could be the nugget we needed to provide an interesting twist to a blog or a valuable example for a new webpage we’re writing.
The only way we’d use a piece of information from an unreliable source is if we double-checked it against a truly practical, qualified website with substantial blog credibility. For example, let’s say we find a YouTube piece about the latest green material used in the building of popular, trending tiny houses. Before we could include that information in our real estate client’s blog, we’d check it out with a university or government website. We have to be sure it’s accurate before we use it.
One Extra Click
Often, all it takes is one extra click on another website to verify online claims. The more you research and write, the more you understand the blog credibility factor and how it works. If, for example, you read a blog on Business Insider, you can pretty much bet that it’s going to be true. On the other hand, a blog on MedicineNet about a new diabetes drug may need some double-checking because that site is run by WebMD, a site that is not inherently trustworthy.
Discover who owns a website by scrolling to the bottom of the site’s homepage. MedicineNet sure sounds like a good source (and many of its blogs may be very true), but because of its origins, it needs to be verified with one more click to somewhere like the National Institutes of Health or the Cleveland Clinic. Even a medical doctor’s site might be able to give you that extra validation you want (and we require).
Consider the Source for Blog Credibility
The bottom line is that not all online claims are true, but you know that. It’s those questionable sources that really can get you into trouble. Figure that government sites are under pretty strict rules about what they can and cannot print, as are journalists at credible news organizations who always must double-source their stories.
A few more tips to help you decide whether to trust a source include:
- Check out the author. When a blog has an author, you’re one step closer to true blog credibility because that person is willing to stake her reputation on it. One click to find out more about the author should seal the deal.
- Consider the date of the post. If a blog post doesn’t have a date, exit and find something else. You really need a date to even know whether you should follow up on the information that may or may not still be relevant today.
- Look at the domain. It used to be that .org was a pretty good sign that you had yourself some blog credibility, but not anymore. Any nonprofit can claim a .org designation and push their propaganda through it. Instead, look for .edu or .gov for your secondary click. Beware, however, that students often get use of their schools’ .edu domain. Never, for example, use term papers as sources.
- Review the website’s design. It can give you clues about how relevant and trustworthy a site is. If it’s garbled, difficult to read and full of weird graphics, its content probably is too.
- And follow this grammarian’s rule of thumb: Everyone makes mistakes; that’s the very definition of being human. But too many grammatical and/or spelling errors on a webpage should send up a big red flag.
Ray Access provides authoritative and engaging blog writing services if you want to be sure you’re getting the real deal and not getting taken for a ride.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.