Simple "require email before download" post?

email script downloads download

[cogitate]

Greetings,

Does anyone know of a simple script to:

1. hide absolute URLs of site downloads

AND

2. require an email for download of the file once the link is clicked?

I've found lots of scripts satisfying #1 but not a lot in the realm of #2.

Mainly, I just want to build a mailing/subscription/opt-in list from the people who download content from our site (mp3 audio recordings of recent presentations -- working on vides of but file sizes are still a bit daunting).

Thanks,

C

[ergophobe]

Nothing I know of offhand, but I think if you use the terms "download squeeze page" or "squeeze page download" you might find a lot.

[JD_Toims]

2. require an email for download of the file once the link is clicked?

I don't know of anything simple/easy for this either, but it can be done by using a unique identifier for those e-mails, "piping to a program" and then having a handler "spit out" an auto reply with the link to the download in it.

Or in "code"
<a href="mailto:[e-mail]&amp;subject=a_unique_file_identifier">E-mail Required. Click to Send for the Download Link</a>

Then in your mail processor (if you're on cPanel it's right there in the mail settings) pipe anything to "download" to a custom handler that grabs/stores the e-mail address, parses the subject line to find the correct link to, and spits out a reply.

You could also have the handler create, store and add a unique identifier to a query_string (EG ?download_id=12345385) in the file url and compare the unique identifier to the ones already stored to make sure the link wasn't just getting passed around and used for repeated downloads.

* Note: there are other ways to do it to, like requiring an address to be entered in a form, auto-sending an e-mail to the address entered with a confirmation link and making them click the link before the download link is showed.

The bottom line is something like this from a coding perspective though is fairly complicated to setup and also have be something that once the link goes out cannot just be passed around and clicked by anyone to by pass the e-mail requirement.