Using safe passwords
Here at Optimising we use Google Apps to handle all of our email - it's a great service and we would not even consider any other option right now. One of the other guys at the office set up the account, so when I need to fiddle with the settings, I asked him for his login. It made me laugh when he recited his password, I won't tell you what it was, but let's just in this case say it was 'ross1', with Ross being his first name.
This got me thinking a lot about people being lazy when creating passwords, and in this online world, it just takes one person to make a mess of your personal accounts. A lot of websites STILL don't encrypt your passwords. This means that if their website was hacked, your email, password (and any other information that you provided!) is visible in plain text to the hacker. This won't make it very hard for them to get access to your emails, Facebook, and even your personal banking software. One good password method to prevent this from happening is to add a letter on to the end of your normal password for each site that you frequent. Say that your standard password is "design12", then for each website you use, just add the first letter of that website to the end of your password:
Facebook: "design12f" Twitter "design12t" Gmail: "design12g"
This way you can still easily remember all of your passwords, and they will also be much more safer in case of a server breach. Got no imagination or forget every password you create? There are some great services that will help you along the way.
Password Generation Systems
Strong Password Generator
Simple system that will generate you a password for any amount of characters and suggest you ways to remember it
Free Password Generator
Again, and easy to use site that allows you to create unique and random passwords Password Storage Systems
Need My Password
An online site that acts as a password storage and recovery system
Foxmarks
If your are using Firefox as your browser, this is a great tool. As well as syncing and storing your bookmarks, it remembers and stores your passwords for websites on request.
James Richardson
Co-Founder
James is Co-Founder of Optimising who’s worked with everyone from national retailers and franchise groups to fast-growing eCommerce brands. He’s as interested in how AI engines send traffic as he is in old-fashioned rankings, and spends a lot of time testing how brands show up across search.
He started out running sports fan sites and early eCommerce stores, picked up a few senior sales and marketing roles at ASX-listed companies, then decided to build the kind of SEO agency he actually wanted to work at. Outside work, James is usually being out-negotiated by his three daughters, hosting very serious pretend tea parties, or supervising yet another cubby house build in the lounge room.
