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Good blogging practice – publishing reliable information

11 Replies Christopher Roberts

The web is massive bank of data, which is far too big to be regulated. Because the web can’t be regulated, it is very easy for false information to spread – fast.

If you are a blogger, it is really important that you publish information which is reliable and trustworthy. Don’t copy what the crowd says unless you know they are right, as this is not only misleading to your readers, but can also see you get penalties dished out from search engines. If you get a reputation for publishing unreliable content, the likelyhood is that your readership will fall.

When you publish something that you have found out elsewhere, you need to make sure that it is accurate and reliable, before you publish it.

How to Mythbust Rumours

When you find information, on the web, in order to ensure that it is reliable, it is always a good idea to check that it appears elsewhere. A general rule of thumb is to check that what you are reading is the same on 3 other sites, one of which is a highly reputable site.

So what is a reputable website?

Government Websites

There are a few way so to identify if a site is reputable or not. One way is to see if it is a government website. Any site which is government run is likely to be very reputable. Government websites usually end in their own unique domain name extension. If you live in the USA, government sites end in .gov or .fed.us, in the UK .gov.uk, in France .gouv.fr, .gc.ca for Canada, India’s extension is .gov.in and the list goes on.

Major News Corporations

Government sites won’t always report things that you want to verify though, so there are other ways to tell a reputable sites. Big news websites like BBC.co.uk/News and Guardian.co.uk will usually only publish information that is factual and accurate, so you can usually trust them.

The Guardian's logoThe information they publish is likely to be accurate, however it may not be impartial, so that is something to watch out for. Often news firms will take a political side, and therefore report news in a certain way – and may only publish part of a story.

High PageRank Sites

Google PageRank is calculated largely by the number of backlinks a page or site has. If a website has a very high PageRank (6+) then it is likely that it has a lot of other sites linking to it, most probably because it publishes a lot of high quality content, which people find useful and therefore link back to. High PageRank sites aren’t always trustworthy, but the higher up the spectrum of PageRank you go, the less likely it is that a site is going to be providing false information.

If a website is a PageRank 8, 9 0r 10, unless they have manipulated Google’s algorithm (through black hat SEO, which will only work for a short while, before Google catches them) then the site is likely to be extremely reliable and reputable, therefore you should be able to trust the information, data and facts that they produce.

1,000,000 to 1

If 1 highly reputable site is saying one thing, but 1 million other (not reputable) sites are saying another another, then the chances are that the 1,000,000 sites are just recycling the same false information, creating a massive bank of false information. This is one reason why you should be really careful who you trust on the web, and also make sure that you verify information with at least one reputable site. Be careful who you trust.

Academic Research

Verifying information with at least 3 sources, one of which is reputable is something which is also advised in academic research. Therefore if you use the same standards on your blog, you can’t go wrong! Search engines and readers alike will respect you for providing good quality, highly reputable content.

Technology Bloggers Policy

Every time I write an article and quote information/statistics etc. I always try to follow the 3 and 1 rule: check the information appears on 3 other sites, at least one of which is ‘reputable’. This means that everything I write should be reputable.

The post guidelines ask all writers to ensure they use the 3 and 1 rule, however we cannot guarantee that all writers do. In our Privacy Policy, we state how we try to ensure all content is true and factual, however it is always advisable to independently verify information for yourself.

Do You Verify Your Content?

Do you always try to ensure that you use the 3 and 1 rule when publishing information? That not only applies to blog posts, but also to comments. If not what measures do you use, or don’t you think it really matters?

How important is the quality of hosting to online retailers?

5 Replies Christopher Roberts

This is a sponsored post. To find out more about sponsored content on Technology Bloggers, please visit our Privacy Policy.

With many brick-and-mortar businesses adding an online version of their high-street store to their portfolio, it’s important that firms choose the right web hosting service. With myriad services offering cheap deals, firms ought to be wary regarding offers that appear to be too good to be true – because they usually are.

On the surface, purchasing web hosting that costs £20 a month seems like a steal. In fact, it is a steal. However the only thing that is being nicked is precious uptime for online retailers, as the vast majority of cheap hosts go hand-in-hand with downtime.

Downtime – a retailer’s worst nightmare

For online retailers, downtime is especially important; every second of downtime is potentially a lost sale. Would you rather pay a premium for quality web hosting that is reliable and constantly up, or pay a third of the price for web hosting that keeps going down? In the long-term, it may cost more for firms to pay for cheap, but less reliable hosting.

In addition, utilising the services of a web hosting service in your time zone could be important, especially for smaller firms. Imagine if your store goes down but your hosting service is half-way across the world. This is certainly not ideal for any stores looking to make sales. For example, let’s just say your UK-based store goes down at lunchtime. No amount of calls at 12pm is going to wake a firm located half-way across the world; tucked up in bed at 12am. It’s a nightmare scenario.

SEO

The importance of SEO over the last 10 years has changed the face of the internet. An increasing number of online retailers are producing fresh content in a bid to become a publishing authority in the eyes of search engines.

However, when a cheap hosting company offers dead links, 404 errors and other harmful downtime to a retailer, what are these search engines going to think? Bounced traffic isn’t going to look good in the eyes of Google or Bing.

Technology Bloggers 404 error

Technology Bloggers 404 Page

Eventually, a retailer could slip down the rankings, and get flanked by its competition. It takes a lot of dedication to work up the search rankings, so don’t let a bogus hosting firm ruin your company and its prospects.

Security

In addition, security should be a top priority for online retailers. The amount of hackers roaming cyberspace is vast and make no mistake – they’re ready to capitalise on unprotected websites. By opting for secure web hosting which features STFP and SSL, a business and its clients can feel assured that all sensitive data is kept in safe hands.

As you can see, the quality of web hosting is an absolutely integral part of the foundations of success for online retailers. In an era of cost cutting and tight purse strings, it might be tempting to lump with a cheap web hosting service from the other side of the world, but in the long-term you may end up opening your wallet more often than you think.

How to proceed in the age of big data?

4 Replies Jonny Hankins

A couple of weeks ago I read an article in the New York Times about the age of big data, and today at a science and technology conference I got into a conversation about the same thing with a US public health official.

Much has been written (and I am a guilty party) about Google’s quest for information, including allegations of infringements of privacy etc, but not all of this capability should be seen in a negative light. I would like to give you a few examples of why.

A wealth of data

Google collect all of the search terms used by every user and categorize them. Let’s take a hypothetical situation. You are director of a large hospital inManchester. What can Google tell you about your job? Well probably a lot, let’s say that this week there is an enormous peak in the search terms “Flu symptoms” used across the Greater Manchester area, or “rash on back and neck”. Indirectly the knowledge of these search trends tells you that you should prepare your hospital, because late next week you will have a massive influx of patients with the Flu or some other contagious disease as it takes hold of the population.

This information is potentially lifesaving, as one of the main problems with epidemics is they come out of nowhere and so health centres are not properly prepared.

Search terms can also give an indication of how the housing market will behave too, with a rise in searches for houses in a certain area being reflected 6 months later in new sales. The type of house searched could also improve planning, as developers would see what people were looking for and where.

Analysts and programmers are currently working on how to expand on the simple examples above using search terms as wider indicators, a system called ‘sentiment analysis’ looks particularly promising.

This form of analysis looks at terms used during on line communication and categorizes them in terms of their sentiments. The logic is that in an area that is prospering terms will be generally positive, but in an area that is threatened by demise, such as the closure of industry or other societal problems, the terms will differ. This is not dissimilar to the conversation analysis sociologists use to obtain a person’s own sentiments about their position in life, with their true feelings reflected in the terms they use without thought. The hope is that an accurate analysis of this type might signal unfolding problems before they become a reality so that action can be taken in specific areas to avoid social breakdown.

I have addressed these issues in more depth on the Bassetti Foundation website, but want to conclude by saying the following; in my posts I have often raised the issue of data collection as a problem, and collection of personal data for advertising or any other purpose for that matter does raise serious ethical issues, but here Google et al could be sitting on a mine of extremely useful and possibly globally important data if the technology and political will is developed to use it correctly.