WordPress has continually improved itself to power over one-third of the Web. There are more and more Internet users looking for valuable information from WordPress websites. It raises up the requirements of approaching and downloading files and content. Thanks to the support of multitudinous external plugins, especially download trackers, WordPress website owners are more satisfied and find it easy to handle their growing download needs.
The only problem here lies in the question: Which download manager plugin should you install on your website? Since each of them covers certain aspects of tracking and managing users’ downloads, you need to clarify what you want to achieve with the download information to select the most suitable plugin.
Here’s the reason why you should have one download tracker on your site as well as the overall review of the current top 5 WordPress download tracker plugins.
- Reasons You Need a WordPress Download Manager
- WordPress Download Manager
- Download Link Statistics – Prevent Direct Access Gold
- Download Monitor
Reasons You Need a WordPress Download Manager
Depending on the purpose and business your website is covering, you need to focus on different perspectives of users’ interaction with the provided content. But once you allow users to download content and files on your website, a download tracker is a must-have.
Track and check suspicious downloads
In case you offer a lot of unique content or sell photographs and videos on your website, you may wonder how many times each of them is downloaded. Without the stats from download trackers, you’ll be in a fog, and barely know what’s happened to your provided content.
Worse, owning a WordPress online store or multiple password-protected content, you’d like to ensure only membership, subscribers or customers are able to download them. Knowing the download times of a particular product or file helps you catch suspicious activities in time.
Understand the interaction between customers and products
For better customers’ understanding, you should comprehend what your users are interested in. Based on the product’s download report, you can figure out which one has the best performance and which one doesn’t. This actually turns out to be a more strategic way to improve your advertising campaign.
If you paid for a particular advertisement method, the download times partly reflect how good it’s working. Plus, with low effective products or content, you can take time to review and update them to gain more interactions.
3 Best WordPress Download Tracker Plugins
Instead of wasting your time trying all plugins one by one to find out the most suitable. The following list shows the leading plugins which have been gaining the trust of hundreds of thousands of WordPress users. Let’s check out if any of them meet your requirements and pick your favorite to install.
WordPress Download Manager
This is so far the most famous download manager in the WordPress repository, with over 100,000 active installations. Beyond tracking downloads on your website, WordPress Download Manager even provides you with Passwords and User Roles to control access to your files. The plugin limits downloads by speed so non-logged-in users will take a longer time to download the files. Also, restricting download availability per users will stop them from multiple-downloads.
Unauthorized users, bots, and spammers don’t have many chances to approach your files since the plugin uses Captcha Lock or IP Block feature to knock them on the head.
What’s more, if you are selling digital products, WordPress Download Manager allows you to add a price to your item. Authorized users can normally download the files that don’t have prices while downloading the priced ones requires them to go through cart and checkout.
Both free and premium versions are packed with full advanced features such as widgets for search downloads, top downloads, video file download protection, and many more, backing you entirely in managing file downloads.
Prevent Direct Access – Download Link Statistic
If you haven’t had any protection plugin on your website, there would be a serious lack affecting the security of your information and files. Recognized by thousands of experts, Prevent Direct Access Gold is one of the best protection plugins in WordPress. The plugin creates a strong shield to cover all of your uploaded files in your Media Library.
Once your files are protected, any unauthorized approaches via direct links or google search will be redirected to the 404 error page immediately. It’s because the plugin discourages Google from indexing your files. Even if you provide users file download links, expiring or deleting those links is still under your control.
The Download Link Statistic Extension assists you in keeping an eye on all the shared private download links to have a better judgment of your products’ performance. If you love YouTube Studio analytics, then you will see the same thing in Download Link Statistics. It shows you top 10 files with most download links, 10 files with most download clicks, 10 going-to-expire links, or 10 countries with most download clicks beautifully with the brilliant interface.
The thing making this extension stands out among other choices lies in the Prevent Direct Access Gold plugin. You can use PDA Gold to protect your media files, and use the Download Link Statistic to manage them effortlessly. Plus, the extension even lists out which domains are hotlinking your images clearly.
Download Monitor
Download Monitor enables you to edit, add, and remove downloads with the same interface of WordPress Posts, and Pages. All the file download information is displayed just like your posts and pages, so even non-savvy users can interact with the plugin easily.
Similar to other download trackers, the plugin presents download links, log access, and file download counts consistently. In addition, you are able to insert download links into posts, add multiple file versions per download effortlessly with this plugin.
At the current time, with more than 100,000 WordPress downloads, the plugin lets the number prove its effectiveness.
Always Keep Your File Downloads Under Watch
No matter what you don’t want unwelcomed users to come to your website and download whatever they want, you should consider having a download statistic when intending to share your digital property with others or sell your works to customers via download links.
Not only does it help you track and check suspicious downloads but also enhances your understanding of customers’ interaction with your products.
WordPress’s ecosystem offers a lot of good choices including the 3 recommended plugins e.g. WordPress Download Manager, Download Links Statistic – Prevent Direct Access, Download Monitor. Each of them has different strengths and focuses to assist users in different ways; however, their sole aim is to present a detailed and easy-to-understand report on file downloads to serve your business.
