Your 8 character password is easily cracked!

Earlier this year, I wrote on another blog about the importance of having good, solid passwords - at that time (oh so long ago in May this year!), I suggested that 8 character passwords using upper and lowercase, numbers and special characters is good.  And it still is... sort of.  despite having a whopping 6 quadrillion possiblities, Passwords^12, a security conference held in Oslo, Norway, during 3-5 December 2012, showed that it wasn't too hard to set up a system which could produce 350 billion password attempts per second!  This renders an 8 character password crackable by brute force in about 6 hours.

Your 8 character PW cracked in 6 hours

Now, obviously, we don't all have such equipment lying round in our garage waiting for the next raodside recycling, but, those intent on password cracking, likely do, or something eqivalent.  So, it seems that we need to extend our passwords.  

Dmitry Bestuzhev, of Kaspersky Lab, offers these suggestions:

Use a different password for each different online resource. Never reuse the same password for different services. If you do, all or many of your other online accounts can be compromised. Use complex passwords. This means, in a perfect scenario, a combination of symbols, letters and special characters. The longer the better. Sometimes our online service providers don’t let us create really complex passwords, but try to use long passwords, with at least 23 characters in a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters. A password of 23 characters (131 bits) would be ok.

Thanks Dmitry, but no thanks.  I won't go as far as saying I'll shoot myself if we actually end up needing passwords that complex, but I'm not rushing out to change all my sites over to 23 character ones either.  Not that they are any less memorable than even an eight character one really, but I think 23 is a little over the top... for now.

Twelve character minimum

Wow, just 7 months ago I said 8, now I'm saying 12.  In may next year, will I be coming back saying 23 after all?  Maybe.  Technology is exploding exponentially, but, there at least, is where passwords are somewhat keeping pace.

Adding just another character to a password exponentially increases the possibilities.  So 8 doesn't have twice as many combinations, but, in fact, about 78 million times as many.  A 12 character PW gives about 400 octillion possibilities (that's 400 with 27 zeros after it) and that's what we use on our sites.  We figure that, for now, that'll put off all but the really hardcore hackers, and we think it's unlikely those guys will be interested in our sites.  But as for tomorrow... remember that the computers that guided Apollo 11 to the moon and back were only as powerful as today's calculators and ran on 64kb of memory!

3 absolutely shocking website designs

They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so I thought I'd illustrate some very basic design rules by showcasing sites who foul those rules up. Googling "worst websites" will give you hours of reading and viewing "pleasure". The commentary about each site is hilarious at times, and the sites are truly appalling! Read on MacDuff!

Teacup Pigs Full Grown

 http://www.bierzto.pl. This site is a real swine (sorry, I couldn't resist that one! Click this link below to find out what I'm talking about). Where do I start? How about the "home page"? It's not a no-no to direct the base URL to an internal page (well, there is no page for the base URL), but why would you? So you get to the landing page (bierzto.pl/offers-for-all/) to find that there actually aren't any offers at this time. Translating the page shows a menu item "Current offers". Excellent! Sadly, there are no offers there either. Takeaway, if you've bothered to put up a page, put something useful on it, or drop it! This goes for the other "Fails" - Under construction, Check back soon, Coming soon, etc.

But the "best" page is actually hidden. Check out http://bierzto.pl/administrator/teacup-pigs-full-grown&page=3. Yes it's a Polish site, but it seems the designers have gone for keyword stuffing in English. But all these are links and will keep you occupied for hours. Bad contrast, with complete lack of formatting. Guess that may be why they hid the pages.

Penny Juice

What could be bad about "...100% blended fruit juice concentrate that is specifically designed for childcare centers, preschools, Head Starts, etc..."? Go look at http://www.pennyjuice.com and you'll see. OK, the site is about fruit juice for under 5's, but that doesn't mean the site should be designed by under 5s, for under 5s! Come on!! Today's challenge... which of the 16.7 million colors displayable on a typical computer screen does NOT appear on this site?Forget about the horrible contrasts and garish graphics, this site is just nasty. Click a link to an internal page and the design changes and navigation disappears, except for a tiny (almost unreadable) set of links in the footer area. "Who is Penny Juice" should lead the visitor to believe it links to an "About us" type of page. Oh no, not in an under 5's mind. This is actually a testimonials page. How about "Where is Penny Juice?". Well at least it shows a map, with local vendors in these cities. Unfortunately, nothing is clickable so the visitor is left still not knowing where Penny Juice really is! Lastly, I had to complete my "tour" (of all 6 nauseating pages) by heading to "Got juice?". Yowsa!! This must rank one of the most hideous forms on the internet. It's truly an assault on the senses!

Leoneck Hotel, Zurich

http://www.leoneck.ch/en/ - oh my goodness. It took me quite a while to stop laughing at this pathetic attempt! Was it the annoying cow bells, the stupid animated cow cursor, or the cheesy cut and paste man who appeared to have his head attached by a spring? A true 10/10 for bad design!

The bad - total Flash design, cheesy graphics and images, annoying cow bells, poor quality English. The good - the back and close tab buttons.

And, just in case you think the bad graphics aren't for real, try the 360 tour (after getting past those stupid cowbells). Their decor really is as bad as the graphics. Wow! Someone needs to give these guys a serious makeover - from the virtual to the real!

Bookmarking on Social media is critical

As with any previous year, Google has rolled out algorithm changes one after the other this year. Some have had little impact (the sites they affect) while others have hit thousands. Many of these changes have targeted sites who are artificially manipulating SERPs, and they've been very successful. Late last year and early this have seen the demise of many linking systems. However, other algorithm updates have altered how Google rates websites for search relevance.

Social media site bookmarking

This topic is one of the biggies this year from a Google perspective. The Millennial generation has become a huge market force, and a group who are connected to their portable devices like a married couple. Therefore, it is logical that Google would start giving fair weigh to social indicators. We think of ones like Facebook, Twitter and Google +1, but it's not just the giants which can now affect your site's rankings. Google also consider the others like Delicious, Digg, Stumble upon, etc. Websites need to be getting votes from these sites to continue ranking well as a necessity, not a luxury. Obtaining solid backlinks is still remains important, but the votes cast on social sites are now carrying much more importance than previously. The evidence is clear when we see numbers of companies offering incentives for customers to Facebook "Like" them. It's vital for every company to now have a clear strategy for been seen, and voted for, on these social indicators.

YouTube videos - a must have

In the not to distant past,t few sites had videos, and almost none of them had testimonials in video. Now they're quite common. Why? In part this is due to their being hosted on YouTube - who, we know, Google owns! Putting your videos on YouTube and embedding them in your site gives you kudos with Google. You can't ignore YouTube's power and effect on your SERPs, and how believable they can make your site feel. Think about how you feel about written testimonials. There's always the wonder if the writer is real, or just the company's employee! Video carries more weight and is infinitely more believable.

Keep up with the Jones's

The big companies are doing it, so it should be a good track for smaller businesses as well. Of course, the big boys get it wrong sometimes, so every person needs to do their due diligence, but this year's trend is loud and clear - get acceptance via bookmarks from social media sites and make some good quality videos, host them on YouTube, and embed them in your site.

5 reasons to have on-site video

SEO is such a changing beast.  That's why it's important to have someone who knows what the latest trends are in your camp.  The days of popping a few keywords on a page and the meta keywords is over.

One important part of SEO today is having videos on your site.  Here are 3 reasons you should be following the trend.

1. Google owns YouTube

 Of all the video sharing sites, YouTube should be your first choice.  That's because Google owns it and is very nepotistic in dolling out it's ticks for SEO.  I created a personal fitness trainer's site last year, and he had about a dozen YouTube videos embedded in his site.  Within a couple of months he was getting 500+ hits a month - on a brand new site!

2. It's great for visitor interactivity

Early websites were static, boring "electronic brochures".  The early site format was, basically, publishing a company's sales brochures on the web.  It was all about shoving a sales pitch, or heavy technical info, down a visitor's throat.  Yuk!

Today, visitors are looking for - actually, demanding - interactivity.  That's why you see galleries, rotating images, polls, forms, and more.  And videos....  Nothing can explain something like a (good) video.

3. It keeps visitors on your site

One of the metrics webmasters & SEO professionals look at is bounce rate.  That's a percentage of how many people land on your site and leave without going to a second, or subsequent, page.  So, obviously, a low bounce rate is good, a high one is bad.

Videos are a great way to capture your visitor's attention and keep them on the site.  And the longer the stay, the more likely they are to sign up for a newsletter, send an inquiry, or purchase some product.

4. It's a great way to convey info

As the world becomes more technical, videos can be a wonderful way to convey difficult procedures or ideas.  In the case of, say, clothing sites, it's an awesome way to display product or showcase a new line.

5. The BEST testimonial

Written testimonials are a must, audio are better, but video testimonials are the best!  Talk to some of your better customers and see if they will be willing to give you a video testimonial.  Help them with the script if they need it.  It will make your testimonials page shine!

Your videos don't have to be a "Lord of the Rings" epic production.  In truth, they should be short, snappy and hard hitting.  A rambling, disjointed video will turn people off as quickly as a bad speech or bad copy.  ANd spend some money to make sure your videos are well made.  Shaky, out-of-focus videos with poor sound and color quality will do more to damage a visitor's perception than a lot of things.

Who should you rank for?

The best answer is, "All of them!"  While this should be your ultimate goal, it's not necessarily doable to begin with.  So where's a good place to start?  Who is the most important search engine?

Google - love or hate 'em

The stats you can see here were comiled for this month (September 2012) by Compete, Nielsen-Net, Alexa, seoMoz, StatsCounter - GlobalStats, and Karma Snack's Snackfolio traffic analytics, and are updated twice a month.  It's pretty obvious that 80-90% of SEO effort should be spent on ranking in Google.

Should you forget the rest?

Never, but design your SEO campaign around the fact that all other search engines make up less than 20% of searches.  But also understand that there are somewhere around 3 billion searches per day.  Even 10% of that is a colossal chunk of potential customers.

Also bear in mind that the little guys can still deliver some good traffic to your site if optimized correctly.  Don't ignore them, just spend appropriate time.

YouTube - the search engine

It's amazing how many people still consider YT just a video sharing site.  Sure, when Google bought YT in 2006 for (what now seems an insignificant) US$1.65 billion it was pretty much just that. And a huge percentage of Google's 80-90% market share is made up of TY searches.

Take away: Get your company a video, or videos, together (good quality, on-topic material please!) and upload to your company channel, then embed in your site.  Google will love you and it's a great way to boost rankings and drive traffic.

Some video topic suggestions: a company intro/overview from the CEO, technical explanation videos for consumers, TV ads (check copyright), video testimonials (these are HUGE!!!).  And remember that YouTube videos/channels need quality SEO work too.