[AndrewD]

Originally Posted by darkmage

I have an idea, I'm not sure if it was discussed in pages before this one but, if you use this script as a downloads page for your website, would it be possible to link to the file directly but make a entry page if coming from an outside website.

Such as if you come from google.com and you request http://forums.blah.com/local_links.php?action=jump&id=1 it would not request the file directly, but it would open up a page that you must first click the download now link before you can continue with the download. Therefore making it 100% (I think) leech proof. However right now I am using the method where users must be logged in before they can download a file.

I have another thought, which is to put a

<meta name="robots" content="index, nofollow">

tag in the links_header template. (i.e. the engine can check the page for links but must not follow those links, i.e. trigger a download). Anyone know whether search engines are reliable on this? - years ago, reports were that many did not interpret the tag. Google follows the rules, I think.