Do you bother protecting your download pages?

Well, if somebody doesn't protect their download pages, I doubt that they're going to announce it in a forum thread.

I thought someone might say that ;-)

but then there are people whose products/niches are not accessible from their identity here.

Sami

A lot of people don't protect their download pages until they see their stuff being passed around, and it all suddenly becomes real and personal.

It's not until after the damage happens that they decide to implement a download management system.

But more and more people are realising adding some security and customer management to your website will actually save you time and money, and generally make your life easier.

Watching what "the guru's" do in this area isn't always the best idea, either. The gurus make their name because they're promotional geniuses, not technical geniuses...I'm sure most of them will whole heartedly agree with this

Having said that, there are a lot of guru's that are also looking for a system that not only secures their download areas, but makes life easier for them and their clients.

Basically as more and more people see how easy it is to implement security, and how it not only benefits them but also benefits their customers (thereby increasing customer satisfaction and raising the chances of repeat business), they're starting to do so.

And depending on your choice of system, they realise just how easy it is.

I often get clients telling me "I wish I bought DLGuard sooner".

Remember that download management isn't just about security - it's also about business management.

cheers
Sam

Sam

Thanks for your info.

I fully agree and endorse the customer management and business productivity benefits that come with the right tool.

I'd also like to hear what problems others have faced if they have tried to install some form of protection.

Sami

Hi Sami,

I protect my DL pages with e-junkie.

I used to host my ebooks and articles on my own hosting account but I find e-junkie to be easy to use and as safe as I want to be.

George Wright

Thanks George

I'll look into e-junkie. On first look it seems good. But also it does eem to lend itself to smaler digital products and not videos that can take much more space and therefore cost more to host there.

Many protection solutions are badly flawed/limited. So I'll check e-junkie form a technical stand point too at some stage.

Many thanks again.
Sami

I once found a download page from one of the most famous people in this forum on a #1 position at google for a very common search term related to the product. How's that for SEO success?

I PMed him, the site was protected very fast, but he didn't even bother to reply to my PM with a simple thank you.

Since simple techniques to protect downloads and thank you pages are around for years now it's hard to understand why someone wouldn't protect his products from the start.

Personally I'm using Fantasos to manage that stuff.

Ralf

I use DLGuard. It has saved me money in the long run, as people cannot download for free.

I do have a couple downloads for newsletter subscribers not going through DLguard, and those get found and passed around sometimes.

I at least put some affiliate links in it, along with my web address for those.

Jeannie

Everyone

Thank you for your contributions.

I have investigated a bunch of download page protection systems and they all seem to suffer from something or other.

For example many digital delivery programs protect the download page 'and' the link on the page. But as soon as you go to multiple links on one page, the protection is reduced to the link that you email to the customer.

That means, the email link can be made to expire or only allow X attempts but if the customer bookmarks the target page, you have no protection - for multiple links one one page.

Why would you need multiple links and not one zip file with all your products in there?

Well, we're in the age of video ... you can easily have videos that are 300 MB and need to be broken up into smaller clips. And if you don't have this situation now, you soon will.

By the way watch out ... the solution offered by many of these systems is for you to set up each file as a separate product. Then they all have to be added to a shopping cart! Not good if you have a video product made up of 12 x 1-hour clips.

You cannot expect the customer to add them to the cart individually ... it is one product after all. And you don't want to sell 12 items, each at 1/12th of the total price!...

... I may be mistaken (& if so I apologise) but (based on a half hour investigation) that seems to be the problem with e-junkie too, i.e. having to add each file as a separate product.

My colleague has been in touch with Sam at DLguard. And DLguard seems to be the only solution on the market in this class of software that can handle multiple files and secure the files, the download page and the email links etc.

I bought DLGuard 3 days ago. We're testing it at the moment and I sure hope it works out ... time is a precious thing.

Sami

I've written my own scheme for protecting DL's, so I'm not awfully familiar with products available to do that function.

Thanks for your support, Sami!

I remember talking to your colleague about the expiring of bonus products.

If you have any questions, please let me know! Either here, or the fastest way is to contact me through the "Contact" link on my website.

Thanks again for choosing DLGuard!

cheers
Sam

Yes I protect mine.. If no paypal payment is made no download is generated. Matter fact you can not even access the download page unless a paypal payment has been made.

I have a 100% custom solution that I coded that is full sercure proof.

James

I use PHP to protect my DL pages. If someone tries to give the download URL to someone else, they'll get an error and automatically be redirected to my sign-up or sales page. You can't access the DL page directly, in other words. I think it cost like $8 to get the instructions for this. I'm not a coder, but the instructions were explicit and easy to follow. I'm sure DL Guard is great, but I wanted a cheaper solution.

John

what else can you do with Dlguard? Or is it just for protecting download pages.

I read on the website that it has an automatic autoresponder sign up

Digital Download Protection - protect your digital products from theft and link sharing with DLGuard

is this feature similar to aweber?

Hi Teo,

Sami is 100% right!

DLGuard can add your customer details to your mailing list.

It's full integrated with GetResponse (I worked closely with GetResponse on this new addition to our systems), and it has a number of free integration scripts for DLGuard members that allow you to connect it to other providers such as AutoResponse Plus (who I also worked closely with on the integration), and more.

Aweber unfortuantly don't allow automatic signups (it's against their TOS), but DLGuard can display and prepopulate a signup form for your customers so they just have to click the submit button.

cheers
Sam

I think it's all part of VRE in that it's a low maintenance way to distribute products. Plus there's less of a hassle as opposed to time-based unique download pages that dissappear within a week. It's convenient for both the customer and the vendor for it's easy accessablity.