Just Ask Someone – FTP Question

A visitor from our Just Ask Someone page left a common question about using an FTP program. Here’s my attempt at a decent answer. Feel free to add to it or answer in your own way by leaving a comment. Any help at all is always appreciated.

QUESTION #2: Skye () wrote: “I’m a newbie who wants to get started as an affiliate marketer. I have several products to sell, and I need someone to walk me thru a page set up to FTP to my hosting company.  Can anyone walk me thru these preliminary steps?“  Dec 27, 2008

Hi Skye. Thank you for allowing us to tackle your question. I have found a pretty straight forward video tutorial on YouTube called ‘How to Use an FTP Program’. In the video Lisa uses FileZilla’s free FTP client. FileZilla is a very popular and free FTP program.

I’ll add a couple of tips before I show the video and hopefully others will add more in the comments below.

Adding products to your site for download is a simple process but it does come with some risks. Without getting too technical right now, you need to hide the actual files the best you can. There are programs out there that will help the process but they can get expensive. One is Easy-Download Protector™ by Michael Green but it sells for $147.00. Personally I wouldn’t recommend anyone spend that kind of money until they are actually making money but that’s just my opinion. You can download a free report on this site at Free Report: “How To STOP Digital Product Theft”.

Always have an index page (index.html, index.php etc.) in your download folder. This helps prevent people from seeing a list of goodies to grab. Some people like a simple re-direct to the main page of the site while others put a big note stating that access is restricted or something to that effect. Personally I like the idea of adding another sales page in that space.

Another thing I might mention is never put your products in a simple folder named products, downloads or anything like that. Something impossible to guess like hG-UL45g_ytt4k might be a good folder name. The same with the product. Name the download something like GJU_45jK4b1d_uy.zip instead of speed_reading_ebook.zip. Also protect those folders and files from being indexed by the search engines. This should be covered in the report I mentioned above.

One last thing. If you are a YourAdTracker.com member then take advantage of the trackers and use the cloaking feature. That way when someone downloads your product they go to http://4u2bn.com/xxxx for the thank you page rather than www.YourCoolSite.com/hG-UL45g_ytt4k. Do the same with the product. Let them download http://4u2bn.com/xxx2 rather than GJU_45jK4b1d_uy.zip. If you use the cloaked feature it helps hide the actual URL. The trackers will also give you an idea if a bunch of people are downloading your products without paying.

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Brian on December 28, 2008 | Filed Under Just Ask Someone

9 Comments

Ben Waugh  on December 28th, 2008

I finally decided to write a comment on your blog. I just wanted to say good job. I really enjoy reading your posts.

Blogging on a Roll  on December 28th, 2008

Hi readers posters good info seekers one n’all … thanks for this info I’ve saved it for my blog so as to share this with the masses because like most I struggled with this task myself in the beginning and even now I’m still learning new ways new beginnings just like you’ve kindly shared above… any one gotten into Twine Yet? check out my link above its a sure fire way to dig deep into better info the social networking way …

All my best folks hope you like me are really looking towards the 2009 gold rush get those picks n shovels ready guys n gals
Phillip Skinner

Brian  on December 28th, 2008

@Ben Hi Ben, I appreciate you stopping by and taking the time to comment. It’s nice to see you here.

@Blogging on a Roll Hi Wilson, I was just checking out your Twine. It’s pretty cool. I also followed it to HomeWorkingAdvertising.com which I assume is yours. That is a very cool script. I have a domain that would be a perfect fit for that. Looks like it combines making money, list building and advertising – three of my favorite topics :)

Fluke  on December 30th, 2008

Good job, Hawkins. I really enjoy reading your blog. Your advice that not to put informative thing in an ordinary folder is really good.

Brian  on December 30th, 2008

Thanks Fluke, nice to see you again.

Brad West  on January 24th, 2009

Ok Brian,

Thought I could come over and add something to your post. I guess not You have about everything covered. Great post.

I don’t think I have ever used FileZilla, right now I’m using Fire FTP I can recommend this one it is has worked flawlessly. I’m sure ether are very similar, just another option.

I have used WS ftp, Ace ftp, and a few others, the worst was SmartFTP. When Smart went to paid only, they disabled the ftp on my machine. So I went to uninstall it and there was a huge hidden log file that I had to manually trash can. Just to delete it from the recycle bin took 20 hours, and there are still to this day three smart ftp files that I don’t seem to delete.

Anyway in this case I have found Free to work out better than the paid products.

Thanks for the great post Brian.
Brad West ~ onomoney

Brad Wests last blog post..Why Your Social Networking May Not Be Working

Brian  on January 24th, 2009

Wow, that SmartFTP sounds like a nasty infection more that a program. I think I used that in the past, I’m not sure. It would have been on a different computer so I’m glad I haven’t installed it on this one.

Another free option that I’ve been trying out is CoreFTP. It has worked perfectly for me but doesn’t seem much different than the others.

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