Password protected areas give a stronger sense of security to those using that area as well as protecting your contents. It allows only members to see and participate in areas of your site. It protects buyers when making purchases. It keeps content away from prying eyes while allowing others to see what you are working on. It can even be an additional way to track just who is looking at what on your site.

There are as many ways to password key your site as there are reasons for doing so. It is highly recommended for areas you want to limit access to on your site, such as a client only area for a licensing site, a boards area for a paid membership group, and the folder(s) that down-loadable items are held in.

Start with using the robots.txt file in your sites root folder. This will help head off bots and spiders from cataloging areas the public should not know about. Learn more about robots.txt files here : http://geek2me.net/?p=140

The simplest way to password protect an area online is to use your server side admin panel and password protect the folder. Usually this simply involves clicking on the folder under the password protect area and adding in the name/password combinations you wish to use. Doing it this way does mean you will be adding the log-in combos for those who will be allowed into those areas by hand. However, this can still be advantageous. For example a licensing artist passwords protects her image catalog. She goes to a major licensing show and has pre-made stickers with name/password combinations she created before leaving home. She can place one sticker on her business card and the other on the contact’s card to whom the combo was assigned. So now only those truly interested in licensing from her will see the new offered designs. BUT, using her site’s stats she can she can tell which potential client visited the site when, how often and which pages they looked at. All that information and tracking can be found while keeping the images safe from poaching.

Another way to password protect is through the use of .htaccess files. This is a very secure way of working things but if you do not know what you are doing you can lock yourself out of your own site. Quite a few programs, such as boardware, blogware, cartware and galleries will use .htaccess files to protect folders and information. Be sure to really understand .htaccess files before fooling with them. The .htaccess way involves two text files one for the password combos one for the call to protect the area. The tricky bit is that the password combos MUST be encrypted.

There are scripts you can use which don’t work server side. Meaning the information is not dependent and held in your server where the site is. Be aware these will not be as secure as those that are done server side.

Your password protection will only ever be as good as the passwords used. If your users sign up with weak passwords and get hacked it is not always the fault of your system. Make sure to use passwords that incorporate numbers and symbols as well as letters. Vary your passwords so if someone does crack one they don’t have access to everything you use a password with. Never give out your passwords or leave them out in the open, even at home.

Also though it may sound silly never use passwords that use your name, the name of the site, or any words identified with the site (such as the site logo phrase) as part of the password. Some of the scripts folks use to brute force break passwords start by using everything on the non-password protected pages of the site. You should use a minimum of 6 to eight characters as a your password length.Vary the string with letters both upper and lower case, numbers, and special characters. Even a truly random string of five characters or less can be broken by scripts that are out there and run fairly quickly on modern computers. Quickly being days or weeks rather than the years 5 characters gave you even 5 years ago; a bit longer is a bit better.

So again simply be aware of what you as passwords, don’t share them with anyone or leave them out in open spaces. If you ever think your password might have been compromised see about changing it. It is better to be safe and change it than lose anything important or allow a hacker greater access to your other accounts or parts of the site.
Online as in life protecting yourself can be as simple as being aware and taking the basic precautions. So be prepared and be safe both on your own sites and on others.