TLD's: (No, it doesn't stand for Talk Later, Dawg)

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 And it doesn't stand for Typing Laptop Dog, either. But it could.


No, TLD isn't some texting lingo--I'm talking about Top Level Domains. You may not know what they're called but I guarantee you see them every day. In fact, I may be spying on you because I'm telling you that you're looking at one right now! Just Kidding. Probably.

.com            .org            .biz

.io                .net            .gov

These are all TLD's, and the kinds of content and discussions that happen on each are pretty different. 

These are also (less common) gTLD's: 

.nyc

.motorcycles

.mom

Weird, huh. (That's a comment, not a domain.)

I won't get too much into the specifics, as they're the subject of my final essay, and we'd be here for eleven pages, but I've found an interesting study on perceived trustworthiness, memorability, and other characteristics of TLD's. 

The study found that the most trustworthy TLD was actually .com, which I personally found surprising, as I'd been conditioned to believe .org was the most unbiased TLD. 

But the more I analyzed sites, the more I realized that I might just agree with this statistic. I looked at some charity sites' statistics and noticed a trend: they all cite themselves for stats. It's all "studies we conducted" and "our field research," which is honestly a little fishy to me. I'm not saying they're lying, but cross-references would do them well in the unbiased stats category. Additionally, there's never any transparency about their setbacks. Like, I want to know if you failed at something! We're all human, and the altruistic angel persona isn't realistic 100% of the time for anybody. Perhaps because they're so focused on the good, we as the public trust charities less because we just inherently trust big org's less these days, and we feel like they're hiding manipulation and stealing from donations, like it's too good to be truly, well, good.

COM TLD's, on the other hand, are just more human. While I have an aversion to social media, I tentatively touched on Buzzfeed, and how their voice is more friendly and reflective of their audience, which will invoke trust, because we back people who are like us. 

So maybe this stat makes sense to me after all. 

But I'm curious, which TLD's do you perceive as the most trustworthy? Why?

Do you trust .org sites? More than .com sites? Why or why not?

Comments

  1. Claire D.May 2, 2021 at 10:36 AM

    I remember reading a poster board by my library that was about evaluating a websites trustworthiness. It followed a ton of kids using Wikipedia to look up info for projects and the teachers were tired of it. The poster board said that sites ending with .edu or .org or .gov were more trustworthy because those sites were ran by the government or an organization or an educational institution. Sites ending in .com or .net were labelled as not as trustworthy because companies ran those and companies can lie. I have stuck with that until this day. I think I would trust .com sites less than .org sites because of that. I was told as a child to never trust Wikipedia but now I have professors saying that I can look at Wikipedia for sources but I need to vet those sources with two or three other sources to back up that source. That is how I was taught but I have not changed much since then.

    ReplyDelete
  2. mstemMay 2, 2021 at 12:07 PM

    Honestly I think it depends on whether I trust the organization or business behind the site that makes me trust a .org or a .com site. I may tend to trust .org sites just a bit more, but I feel like that is because as an English major I have have been taught to trust domains that end in .org or .edu even. Also in general I think because you are usually encouraged to trust .org and .edu even .gov sites mor than .com sites. it can cause you to think that all .com sites are less trustworthy. I will say for .com sites since I am also a journalism person, I often try to find news articles to support points in essays so I may tend to trust .com sites more than average, but also partisan bias may come into play with the .com sites I trust.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kalynn AulerMay 3, 2021 at 7:16 AM

    I usually go for a .edu or .gov, those are the sites I think of as most reliable. But, I also trust a lot of .com sites, but as Mary mentioned in her comment I'd have to learn a little about the company first. Recently I've been using .com sites more because if they have good information and ways to back it up, why should I turn my nose up at it? I feel like there's a hidden notion of elitism in academic sourcing, but that's another story.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jennifer McGowenMay 3, 2021 at 9:06 AM

    I feel like in elementary school, it was all about using .org and .edu and .gov. You could MAYBE depend upon .com, but they drilled it into us that government and educational sources were the best of us. Then, as I got older, I began to realize how messed up our government could get, so why should I trust websites made supposedly specifically by the government? It doesn't surprise me that .com is more of the reliable source. As you mentioned. .org does use many statistics produced by the publisher which can create a crazy amount of bias. I only wonder if teachers in elementary school and such have quit drilling it into our heads that .com isn't the best. I find way more information using .com than I do any other domain.

    ReplyDelete
  5. macenziesumanMay 3, 2021 at 11:24 AM

    I have always deemed .gov or .org to be the most trustworthy. In middle and high school, if we were to use anything other than these we would be docked points. Anything other than .gov or .org was deemed to be an unreliable source. Today, I still feel .gov and .org are the most reliable, but that may just be because they are the only ones I ever really use. Journal articles are my go-to source now (which are found mostly through .org sites I believe?).

    ReplyDelete

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