Hiding Your Sensitive Data From Google and the World - Listings You Wouldn't Like to Reach the Top

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Aside from stolen databases of credit card numbers and social security numbers, it is possible to perform simple queries on Google and get juicy info about people and organizations of interest to you. Also, there are combinations of search keywords and commands that reveal another type of sensitive information: passwords, the schedule of your company, shopping details of your customers, and more. For instance, if you write a query like “inurl:password” you will quickly discover URLs where a password string is contained (most likely unencrypted). You may even see the user name itself. When optimized pages, you probably do not have such keywords in mind; however, you wouldn't be happy to top a listing like that, right? Maybe you as a SEO expert knew that URLs are important for success with search engines, but you are not focusing on security, right?

If you are interested in more details about what is possible to find on an unprotected site, a place where a lot of information is gathered is the web site of Johnny Long. He is an author of books about Google hacking. His site is http://johnny.ihackstuff.com, and an especially informative section is the Google Hacking Database.

Even if security is not your focus, some precautions in dealing with people's private data is always necessary. Even if Google themselves does not index this information or you manage to remove it from their index, there are enough hackers in the world that will take advantage of somebody else's negligence and ignorance. It does not hurt to make some efforts to secure your site and, above all, to make sure that security is working.

How Can I Prevent Sensitive Data From Appearing on Google?

On one hand, the measures to prevent sensitive data from appearing on Google depend on what kind of site you have and what applications are running on it. On the other, there are measures that are universal no matter what kind the site is.

Next: Protect Your Data from Search Engines >>
 

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