Internet is a huge place where just about anyone can make a website that is easily accessible. Therefore there are many unreliable website out there as well as reliable websites. There are millions of website so how can we really tell whether there reliable or not. Especially websites that aren’t branded or not well known.
There are websites that are run by huge companies that get there sources through major research and gathering information from reliable sources by carrying primary research.
Websites like the BBC are a reliable source as it’s a well known brand and is funded by TV license and it’s there duty to not be biased. Over the years the BBC have built a trust therefore I would say it’s a reliable source.
Who is writing the story or writing there research is extremely important. A blog post for example could be extremely biased as it’s there opinion and that particular person could be narrow minded and strong about there personal opinion therefore you can’t 100% trust what that person is saying.
Journalist for a particular newspaper or website could be biased as well. Newspapers like the ‘The Sun’ are biased towards certain subject and caters to a particular target audience therefore it is biased. Tabloids are known to be biased compared to broadsheet newspapers which try to as fair as possible.
A source reliability also depends on how recent the research was carried out. If the data is a year old then it’s less reliable than a research that carried last week because it’s updated. If it’s a science project than it could be more accurate as technology could have been improved.
Wikipedia is a tricky website to trust as it’s written by anonymous people. But it’s a factual based website rather than a opinion blog post. So it’s up to you personally to trust whether what your reading is true or not.
