How to Keep Your Download Pages Out of the Search Engines
Posted 14th August 2008 at 02:49 PM by Chris Lockwood
Updated 14th August 2008 at 02:54 PM by Chris Lockwood
Updated 14th August 2008 at 02:54 PM by Chris Lockwood
Many people who sell downloadable products such as ebooks are shocked to find out that their download pages can get listed in the search engines. This means others can find the pages and download the product for free, sometimes without realizing that what they are downloading is something they were supposed to buy.
There have been times when I was searching for reviews on a specific product and found its download page on the first page of Google's results. Who knows how many people downloaded that product without paying for it?
The most secure way to protect your downloads is to use a script. Search for "download protection script" and you will find several. Any membership site script can also handle this task.
The rest of this article is about how to make your downloads more secure without buying software.
The first thing to do is to pick a non-obvious file name for your download page. Do not use something like download.html or thankyou.htm since those are too easy for someone to guess.
Instead, pick a file name that sounds more like a password. Something like Hkp3YSw8jKl.html is good. Notice the mix of uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers. It is nearly impossible for someone to guess a file name like that.
Don't worry that the file name is cryptic, since your customers will be following a link (usually from your payment processor) to get to the page, not typing the name.
The next thing you can do to secure your download pages is to move them periodically. Every so often, change the file name or put it in a different directory (folder). Don't forget to update your payment buttons or accounts to the new name.
It's a good idea to leave the old page there for a day or so in case any customers were in the process of buying while you were making the change.
Why change the file name? Some people send download links to others or even post them in forums, so by changing the download location, the old links no longer let people steal your product.
There is a piece of HTML code that you should put in any file you do not want to be listed in search engines. It is this:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">
Put the line of code right above the </head> tag near the top of the page. It tells search engines not to list the page and not to follow any links in it. All the major search engines will respect this command.
You may be wondering how your download page could get listed in a search engine if you have no links to it. If someone visits that page and has the Google or Alexa toolbar in their browser, that can be enough for the search engine to find the page and possibly index it.
One more thing you can do if you have more than one website is to put your download page on a different site than the sales letter. This will make it even harder for a thief to find it.
There have been times when I was searching for reviews on a specific product and found its download page on the first page of Google's results. Who knows how many people downloaded that product without paying for it?
The most secure way to protect your downloads is to use a script. Search for "download protection script" and you will find several. Any membership site script can also handle this task.
The rest of this article is about how to make your downloads more secure without buying software.
The first thing to do is to pick a non-obvious file name for your download page. Do not use something like download.html or thankyou.htm since those are too easy for someone to guess.
Instead, pick a file name that sounds more like a password. Something like Hkp3YSw8jKl.html is good. Notice the mix of uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers. It is nearly impossible for someone to guess a file name like that.
Don't worry that the file name is cryptic, since your customers will be following a link (usually from your payment processor) to get to the page, not typing the name.
The next thing you can do to secure your download pages is to move them periodically. Every so often, change the file name or put it in a different directory (folder). Don't forget to update your payment buttons or accounts to the new name.
It's a good idea to leave the old page there for a day or so in case any customers were in the process of buying while you were making the change.
Why change the file name? Some people send download links to others or even post them in forums, so by changing the download location, the old links no longer let people steal your product.
There is a piece of HTML code that you should put in any file you do not want to be listed in search engines. It is this:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">
Put the line of code right above the </head> tag near the top of the page. It tells search engines not to list the page and not to follow any links in it. All the major search engines will respect this command.
You may be wondering how your download page could get listed in a search engine if you have no links to it. If someone visits that page and has the Google or Alexa toolbar in their browser, that can be enough for the search engine to find the page and possibly index it.
One more thing you can do if you have more than one website is to put your download page on a different site than the sales letter. This will make it even harder for a thief to find it.
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