The "elaborate systems of communication" that historian Christopher Lasch observed nearly three decades ago have intensified in complexity and scope. The explosion of the Internet and wireless technologies has resulted in a dizzying proliferation of texts. Teachers and students are but a keystroke or mouse click away from a limitless stream of video clips, blog entries, news articles, social networking messages, and more. Social studies teachers can draw on disciplinary tools, such as strategies for sourcing, contextualizing, and corroborating texts, to help students critically analyze and evaluate sources of information. Yet, the authors believe many web-based texts pose unique challenges that outpace these strategies. They combine varied text structures and formats, such as non-linear hypertext, multimedia, and interactive texts that typically mix images, music, graphic arts, video, and print. Moreover, ease of distribution and access of web-based texts brings issues of credibility to the fore. In this article, the authors consider how educators can respond to these credibility challenges. They do this with a close look at two digital texts, a "denial" text about climate change and a "conspiracy theory" text about September 11, 2001. They employ two metaphors, "excavation" and "elevation", and two sets of key questions teachers and students can use to evaluate these kinds of complicated web-based texts. (Contains 18 notes.)