Veracity is the first criteria. Unbiased factual truthfulness is sometimes hard to come by on the Internet. For us to judge the veracity of a website's documents is difficult. We rely on fact checking on the content, determining the source of the information and viewing the manner of the presentation to look for things that might make us suspicious to prejudice, bias or matters of opinion. Establishing a rating on truth is a subjective matter, so gauging the accuracy of a website's documents can be a difficult task.

Relevancy of the documents are the next criteria. By relating the content of the site' documents to the subject of the category that is being researched we try to determine whether the information will be relevant to a their needs. Can the documents provide pertinent information for research of a given topic? Again, this is a subjective matter that relies on our judgment.

Quantity of information basically means the more information given about a topic usually the better for conducting research. This criteria is examined after the first two decide if a site's documents are relevant and truthful, then the more information published the more likely it will provide the answers that the researcher is seeking.

Permanence of the website's documents is important to satisfy a researcher who is trying to link to retrieve the information. To determine that a document is still viable we do periodic link checks to see if they are still available. Then we also try to check the content of the documents once in awhile to find changes that might affect the first three criteria. Because the web is dynamic we can never know what will be presented.

A lot of the websites the Top100k features are from academic organizations, educational institutions, consumer groups and government agencies which we consider to have the most unbiased reliable informational content. We do consider all commercial and noncommercial contributions when people add their favorite sites.

The Top 100k website retains the right to choose the top sites based on the criteria listed above. These are subjective choices. By making these decisions ourselves it allows us to maintain the integrity of our website. Descriptions submitted may be altered to better suit the needs of the users or for any other reason. Sponsors may receive preferential placement or treatment.