This morning on The Today Show, I saw a hilarious story: A new website, AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com, has become a repository for strange, uncomfortable and outright funny family photos. Users submit the photos (often under the guise of “anonymous”), and viewers get a chuckle. The Today Show staff even saw fit to Photoshop a fake photo of Matt Lauer to add to the slideshow fun (watch the video linked above to see it). Blogs like this one encourage people to submit their own hilarious photos to the site in order to add to the general amusement, and overnight, AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com has become a sensation. According to this blog, the site generates 2 million viewers per DAY and is fielding offers from book publishers.

While this website is a great idea for the sake of humor, it’s also a lesson in how posting personal photos on the Internet can backfire. Even a photo that you consider to be adorable, precious or beautiful might be someone else’s laughter-inducing image, so be prepared for that if you see fit to upload. It helps if you follow these rules every single time you post a photo on the Internet, regardless of which site you’re posting it on:

1. Don’t post anything that you wouldn’t want the entire world to see. Even if you’re posting with privacy settings or “friends only” viewing in a social networking profile, you still have to assume that somehow, a photo will get out to the general public. It just happens.

2. Don’t post photos of yourself doing anything remotely illegal, immoral or questionable; even if you think it’s a good idea now, you WILL regret it. That kegstand from last weekend? Awesome for you, but if you post the photo, it’ll be out there forever, certainly long past the age when you’ll be proud of kegstands. The same, of course, goes for photos of nudity, drug use, vandalism, etc. If it’s illegal, you just gave up the evidence willingly. If it’s immoral to the bulk of the population, you just impaired your chances of becoming a huge success in life (see: politicians, heads of major corporations, etc.).

3. Don’t post anything that gives away too many details about your identity (a photo with your home address on it, a photo with your full name or the names of your kids, etc.). Prudence is best when posting images, and you don’t want an identity thief using that info against you.

4. Be willing to laugh at yourself. After all, someone else probably is, especially if the photos are at all goofy, dated, and of course, awkward.