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Context.—The rapid growth of the Internet has triggered an information revolution of unprecedented magnitude. Despite its obvious benefits, the increase in the availability of information could also result in many potentially harmful effects on both consumers and health professionals who do not use it appropriately.Objectives.—To identify instruments used to rate Web sites providing health information on the Internet, rate criteria used by them, establish the degree of validation of the instruments, and provide future directions for research in this area.Data Sources.—MEDLINE (1966-1997), CINHAL (1982-1997), HEALTH (1975-1997), Information Science Abstracts (1966 to September 1995), Library and Information Science Abstracts (1969-1995), and Library Literature (1984-1996); the search engines Lycos, Excite, Open Text, Yahoo, HotBot, Infoseek, and Magellan; Internet discussion lists; meeting proceedings …