Does the sponsor affect the information on the page?

The sponsor or publisher of a Web page may dictate the content or may give the author total control of what information is included. Universities often have few policies about students, staff and faculty publishing personal pages on their sites. Alternately, companies may have more regulations about what may be published on their servers. Some Internet service providers may offer guidelines for what is acceptable information, but they may not take responsibility for what their subscribers publish.

• Look for a link or a logo back to the main page.
• Do you know the sponsor? Do they seem reputable?
• Notice if the advertisements take up a significant portion of the page. Many Web designers rent space on their pages. Other sites incorporate advertising for their own products.
• Remove the file name from the URL. Look at the Web page that exists under this directory. Many times this new page will be part of the sponsoring organization's Web site.