Unofficial websites

Most websites found on the internet don't belong to companies or organisations. Many people publish websites as a hobby or for political reasons. Many websites set up by people can be:

• inaccurate
• out of date
• biased

It's often quite easy to spot an unofficial website [unofficial website: a site that is not produced by or belongs to an 'official' company or organisation ]. Just look out for the following:

Address

You can often spot whether a website is unofficial by looking at its address. The website is likely to be unofficial if the address (URL):

• Does not include any of the following: gov, ac, .co.uk, org, .com at the end of the address.
• Has long addresses such as http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Artists/C/Coldplay/ConcertReviews/2005/05/12/1035923.html.
• Very long and includes free web hosting companies such as Yahoo, AOL, geocities or freewebspace.

The more you use the web, the more familiar you'll become with different URLs.

Design

You can usually tell that a website is produced by an unofficial source just by looking at the website design. An unofficial website is likely to have:

• ugly graphics and animated gifs
• poor page layout
• spelling errors
• broken links to pages

Bright colours and poor quality photographs are not very attractive

Updates

Most websites include a 'last updated' date. Always check this. Some websites haven't been updated for years and information may be completely out of date.

Daily news - last updated 04/07/2003

Use of unofficial websites

Some unofficial websites can be useful for finding out people's opinions. Websites about hobbies, music and travel often provide valuable advice and opinions about everything from restaurant to gig reviews.