As Internet users quickly discover, an enormous amount of health information is available online, and finding reliable information among the millions of online sources can be a difficult task – we hope these tips help you search more easily.

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Research by Cyber Dialogue found that consumer demand for healthcare content has already reached critical mass and will continue to grow at roughly twice the rate of the overall online population. By 2010, it is estimated that 88.5 million adults will use the Internet to find health information and shop for health products

Going online for health related information is popular. In fact, the population of consumers using the Internet as their primary learning channel for health information continues on an upward trajectory, with 36.7 million consumers recorded as ‘looking online’ as their first stop when searching for information.

Interestingly, the Internet is already used more than healthcare professionals for family health information – with women between the ages of 25-34 one of the highest user groups, citing the Internet as the primary resource for information to keep their household healthy.

So what does this mean to the average online consumer? With so much health information so readily available at our fingertips, should we believe everything we read?

There is no doubt that the Internet can be a great resource when you want to learn about a specific disease or health condition. But how much of it can we trust? How can we tell the difference between good and bad health information, especially when there's so much of it? This becomes a very important question when you consider that many people rely on the Internet to learn about illnesses or make decisions about care and treatment – sometimes for very serious conditions.

While search engines such as Google deliver ranked results based on the most popular or ‘well accessed’ sites – we know that popularity doesn’t make something right. In fact, in many instances, web articles containing ‘sensational’ content are those most visited and such sites can often rank highly in search engines results (just try typing “Holocaust Truth” into Google to see sensational and misleading rankings at work).

There are no rules policing the kind of health information that turns up on the Internet or who puts it there. There is a group that health site owners can seek approval from on their own. Health sites approved by the Health On the Net Foundation sport a red and blue "seal of approval" to tell users the information is reliable. To earn a seal, the site has to meet eight Foundation conditions. However, there are plenty of sites without this seal that contain good health information.

So as healthcare consumers, we have a big job – we must decide which information is good based on sound judgment, and some general guidelines. It’s not enough to simply search using keywords or topics and passively rely on the information that is returned – you must apply your own evaluation, judgement … and some basic common sense. That can be hard. So to avoid unreliable health information when you’re using the Internet, below are a series of questions to ask yourself.

Where did this information come from?

Always pay close attention to where the information on the site you're looking at comes from. Any site that provides health related information should tell you the information's source.

Find out who wrote the information – keep in mind that many health related sites post information that comes from other sources. If the person or organisation that runs the site didn't write the information, the original source should be clearly stated.

Check to see if the information you're reading refers to experts in the field or to medical studies, reports or articles. If a healthcare professional didn't write the information, was it reviewed by a doctor or another medical expert?

If the information contains any statistics, do the numbers come from a reliable source?

Does something on the site appear to be someone's opinion rather than a fact? If so, is the opinion from a qualified person or organisation (such as a doctor or medical organisation)?

Be careful of sites that don't say where the information comes from. Ask yourself the purpose of the site. Is it to inform? To sell a product? To raise money? Be on the lookout for sites trying to sell a product, service or opinion.

Good sources of health information include:

• ".gov" or government sites like the National Institutes of Health and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• “.edu” such as university or medical schools including the Johns Hopkins University Medicine and the University of California at Berkeley
• hospital, health system, and other health care facility sites like the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic
• ".org" or not-for-profit groups whose focus is research and teaching the public about specific diseases or conditions, such as the American Diabetes Association, the American Cancer Society, and the American Heart Association
• medical and science journals, such as the "New England Journal of Medicine" and the "Journal of the American Medical Association," although these aren't written for consumers and can be hard to understand

How current is this information?

Health information is constantly changing, so a good health site needs to be up-to-date. For example, researchers continue to learn new things about various diseases and their treatments.

Check when the information was posted on the site. Usually the date will appear at the bottom, or sometimes the top of a web page. How old is the information? Does the site mention how often it is updated? Does the information before you reflect the most current thinking and medical findings available? You might have to research other sites or go to other information sources to find out.

If this date isn't included, check to see whether the page has a copyright line. This tells you when the information was originally written. If the page you're reading hasn't been reviewed in the past year, look for more recently updated information.

Does the information check out?

Compare the information you find on a site with other sites, news accounts, or library resources to see if it says the same thing. You also can get your doctor's opinion by asking whether he / she is familiar with the information you uncovered.

Does the information sound "too good to be true"?

If the information sounds unbelievable, it probably is. Some sites push miracle cures for cancer and other diseases without enough evidence or studies to show they work. Be on guard for misleading reports of medical information.

Sometimes reporters misrepresent study findings because they don't understand them or because they're trying to make a story more interesting or "newsy." Shop around to see if other sources support the information you have. Check for links. Reliable sites are more likely to link to others with similar information. Beware of sites that link only to a search engine.

Most importantly, the Internet should not be a substitute for professional advice or your own doctor – ideally, the information you find online should supplement or support the conversation you have with your healthcare provider.

Some more tips

• make use of known, reliable health information tools such as MEDLINEPIus, Healthfinder, and Kids Health
• if you search with Google or Yahoo, use the advanced search options to narrow down your results
• major diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease often have a multitude of sites specific to a particular health issue – reputable sites such as the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, and the American Heart Association
• be careful of sites where the only purpose of the site is to sell you something – you want a site where the main purpose is to provide quality information
• look for spelling and grammatical mistakes – more than a couple of these indicate a weak site that has not been properly edited or reviewed
• pay special attention to any site that receives the Health on the Net (HON) seal of approval. HON is one of most respected not for profit portals to medical information on the Internet and has maintained its website since March 1996. The HON site was one of the very first URLs to guide both lay users and medical professionals to reliable sources of healthcare information online. The HON seal indicates that a site adheres to the HON code principles for the provision of authoritative, trustworthy web-based medical information. The complete principles can be found at http://www.hon.ch/HONcode/Conduct.html