Controlling Who Sees What on Your Site
by Heidi Pollock7 Jan 1999
Heidi Pollock finally left the big city for a quiet country life of dial-up access and frequent power outages.
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When I first started putting pages on the Web, naturally it was all about
me, me, me: my thoughts, my hobbies, my GIFs, my 17-year-old goldfish's
eulogy. As the Web grew, however, all that personal revelation
seemed a little too, well, revealing, and I turned my site into a more
respectable place. But frankly, when I wasn't experimenting with avant-garde navigation theories, it was a little boring. My friends wanted more.
I began putting the personal back into my personal Web site, sneaking in
JPEGs, putting up private messages for my technoweenie pals, and updating
a FAQ page devoted to nothing less than my daily-changing self. Meanwhile,
other more professional parts of my site were also expanding. I put up my
résumés (all three), some writing samples, and in a supreme act
of Web-o-philia, my invoices (no muss of faxing or mailing; I simply
emailed the URLs to my well-connected clients).
Having your own, combined personal and business Web site is no longer unusual.
In some cases, it's even expected. Pretty much everyone - potential
boyfriends, prospective employers, and my grandmother - not only assumes I
have a Web site but seeks and finds it on their own. And that's
the problem. Some eyes really ought to be kept from certain parts of my Web site.
Since I wasn't ready to break down my site into multiple channels (with multiple domains, accounts, and work), I
decided that I'd find a way to keep specific content at a safe distance from other content.
As things stood, my site followed normal Web design
practices: All the different facets of my life were separated into tidy
work, play, and personal trees, all neatly accessible from one central homepage.
But it was that central accessibility that was causing me all the
problems.
Let's take a look at the old-school Web construction metaphor that has left
us with the notion of a "home"page. Imagine that your Web
site is a house (you've done it before, you'll do it again). One of the errors in this classic metaphor is thinking
that a house has only one entrance. In fact, there are lots
of ways into a house: a back door, a garage door, a dog door, a window left
slightly ajar on the second floor. In other words,
most houses have a variety of entrances that can be used if a person
knows where to go. On the other hand, there are a variety of places - the bathroom, the bedroom of a rebellious
teen - that can be locked, barring access to unwanted
visitors.
