How To Determine Whether A Website Is Reliable

1, Check the extension of the domain name

A.info domain name is very cheap, it costs only $1.99 a year, therefore it's widely used by malicious users. A.gov or.edu domain name can only be registered by a public institution( government, university, etc. ), which means that it's reliable. The.com,.net as well as.org domain names are most widely used by websites, they do not indicate anything.

2, Check the history of the domain name

You can lookup the whois information of a certain domain name with domain tools or other similar tools, it will present to you the creation date, the expiration date and how long has it been registered, it's obviously that a website has a 5-year history is more reliable than a one-year one.

3, Check the ranking of the website

Alexa is an online utility designed for this purpose, anyone can use it to check the traffic rank of a specific site, for example, Google has a rank of 1, Yahoo has a rank of 4, Twitter has a rank of 9, Lifehacker has a rank of 730. A website which has a rank of less than 3000 is trustable in most cases, on the contrary, a website with a rank of greater than 1 million is usually unreliable.

4, Check the number of pages indexed by Google

You can get the number of pages indexed by Google with the site command, for example, you can type "site:yahoo.com" in the Google search box to inquire the number of pages of Yahoo, if a website has a low traffic rank but a high page number, you should be cautious about it.

5, Check the PageRank of its homepage

You can install the Google toolbar for your favorite web browser, if a website has a PageRank of bigger than 6, it's always authoritative, for example, Google has a PageRank of 10, CNN has a PageRank of 10, the New York times has a PageRank of 9.

6, Scan the website with online security tools

You can scan the website for malware using online scanners like QualysGuard and WebAnti-Malware, they offer users the ability to scan and detect malware for a specific website easily, some antivirus software such as AVG antivirus, Avast free antivirus also provide this feature.

Good habits are important, you should not buy brand handbags, brand purses, brand name shoes, brand boots from a not well known website, cheap always means low quality, fake, or even poisonous.

Before you download a software, it's a good idea to check whether you can download it from CNET, Softpedia or other famous alternatives, because all programs on download.com is tested and scanned by full-time employees, the software host by CNET or Softpedia are guaranteed to free of viruses and any other malicious programs. On the other hand, if an application has been reviewed by Lifehacker, Makeuseof or a variety of independent blogs ( for instance, diggfreeware ), it's generally reliable.