People refer to the internet for everyday questions. Search engine sites like Google, Yahoo, or Ask.com were developed to give that information to the people. Search engines use text-matching techniques and specially formulated algorithms to find web pages that are important and relevant to a user's search. Sometimes when searching for the information the searcher is unable to find such information. This is when people go to websites like Quora or Answers.com for information they may not be able to obtain solely from a search engine.
What is Quora.com and Answers.com exactly? Well let's begin by saying that they are both websites that a person can refer to when looking to ask a question or even answer a question that someone else has asked. Quora and Answers are not exactly the same either.
What is Quora?
Quora is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. The most important thing is to have each question page become the best possible resource for someone who wants to know about the question.
With Quora, most of the time when searching users will receive a person's name and identifier when the question gets answered. For instance, say a person searches, "How do I find a web design company for my small business?" A new screen pops up listing the people who have answered this question. One person who has answered this question is Chris Jennings, Director of UX at Disqus. Users can then click on Chris Jennings name and see how often he adds to Quora's site, how many people follow him, how many votes he receives on the answers he shares with the community. This can help the user determine whether or not the person who answered is a reliable source or not.
What is Answers?
Answers.com marries the best of community-driven questions and answers with hundreds of respected and trusted editorial reference books. The site knows the best answer to give you, whether it summons the expansive, ever-growing collection of community answers from WikiAnswers, or it taps into its ReferenceAnswers database, a comprehensive set of editorial, licensed reference topics.
Answers.com states that the questions are answered by respected and trusted editorial reference books, but when users go on the site and ask questions, the person who answers the question is identified with a number such as: ID0202569179. This is what occurs when a user does not fill out the profile information. Who is ID0202569179? What kind of educational background does the user have that a person can trust the user with the answer they have given? Also some information is taken from WikiAnswers and Wikipedia is a site created by the community. Anyone and everyone can add to information to Wikipedia whether or not the information is correct.
With sites like Quora or Answers users take the risk in not knowing exactly where this information is coming from. Both sites are open to the public, meaning that any average Joe with a computer and internet access can answer the question being asked. Although both sites try and weed out the good answers from the bad answers, the process is not always bullet proof. With sites question/answer sites like these, users must always double check the information they have received.