Protect download, thank you pages

[blalock61]

Are there any good free ways to password protect your download or thank you page with script or software? Don't have the spare money right now to pay for software yet. Thanks in advance.

[stevenh512]

If your host uses cPanel (not sure about any other hosting control panels), you have a "free" way to password protect your downloads built right into your hosting account. Simply put your download in its own directory, then use cPanel's "Password Protect Directory" to protect that directory and set up a user name and password.

If you want each customer to have their own user name and password it's more complicated than that, unless you want to set it up by hand (and risk a lot of complaints when your customers don't get "instant delivery" of their download) you'll need a membership script. Not sure if there are any decent membership scripts that are free.

[Akky]

Protecting a thank you page is quite hard. First you have to add a meta tag o noindex of that page.

And then use an IPN script to mail the download link to the buyer.

I would suggest you to use e-junkie.com .

Since you don't have much money to spare. Use this Coupon code to get 67 days free with them.

"EASYE-JUNKIE"

The above coupon must be applied when registering.

G'day,
Akky

[blalock61]

Thanks for the help.

[ExtraB]

Do you happen to know what type of hosting server you use?

I work with an Apache / Linux server...

Here is what I would do... create a directory on your server
upload the file you want password protected in there
then add an .htaccess file and .htpassword file to the directory

These are basically small files you can make in any text editor like notepad

one holds the username and password

the other sets up the directory as requiring a username and password to access it

this is easy to set up if you want everyone to have the same username and password

I will just leave it at that for now. There are a lot of resources on the web that will explain .htaccess and .htpassword for you.

I would be willing to offer my services and set it up for you if like. Just let me know with a PM.

All the best to you
Eric Bonnici
Internet Marketing Articles

[jtrag]

Just use .htaccess password on the directory/files

[Mike Tompson]

It is quite difficult to do so. I have been trying to do to but think my luck is not that good. I keep on getting script error.

It is pretty much as simple and easy as ExtraB explained... If you have cpanel though just login and click on the "Password Protect Directories" icon and locate the folder you want to protect and click on the folders name. You will then be presented with a form that will ask you to add a User/Pass - Once added then fill out the protection form add any message you want and click on save.

That is the easiest way to do it for free....

James

[Al Andrews]

Just password protect your download page in cPanel which will create a .htaccess file in the download directory, then you can send the user name and password yo your customer in an email after they pay.

Al

[Armaan.Zafar]

You have two options

- Use .htaccess to password protect.
- Use cPanel to password protect.

Or - a paid way tho - you can use DLGuard or a service maybe like E-junkie!

[blalock61]

Thanks for all of help. I have Hostgator hosting with Linux server. I was not aware that you could password protect through Cpanel until I posted this here. I thank you all for your help and advice.

After some of the posts, I also was looking at E Junkie since it is not very expensive. If anyone on here uses it, the best you can tell, does it provide reliable and accurate service and data? Thanks again for all the info.

[zoobie]

yeah the most easy way is to use .htaccess to create password for that directory... very easy to do and you can post the password in the email , twitter profile for your subscriber to get the info...

[sherry_d]

How about just adding no follow to the page and instead of having it end in something like thank you just have something like mukwas09 and put your stuff there.

I find it really annoying when I buy something and go to download link only to find it exprired...password protecting is really a bummer for the customer...it is to me anyway and i dont think its good. I just wanted to save that link and access whenever.

[Aaron Sustar]

Maybe you are acutally better off having a download page with some difficult-to-guess URL, because this way you can still give your customers a link and that's it.

If you customers want to share the ebooks or whatever they downloaded, they will share it anyway - it doesn't make much difference if they send the PDF to their friends by email or they give them a link to your website.

Of course there are more bullet-proof solutions, but you said you preferred a free solution.