Redirecting buyers to my file download exposes my file URL, causes download errors
« Return to Redirection after payment
We do not recommend using Redirection to send buyers to an external file URL or download page hosted on your site or a third-party file-hosting service. Instead, our built-in download delivery feature would issue each buyer their own, unique download link that expires after the number of Attempts and (optional) Hours you allow in the product's settings.
While our Redirection feature also issues each buyer a unique, expiring link, once they access their Redirection Landing Page URL via that link, that Landing Page URL is then exposed in their browser, where they could save or bookmark it to visit later without going through their E-junkie link at all, or even share that Landing Page URL with others who could visit it directly to download without paying you first.
Redirection is not intended for file downloads. It is designed to redirect buyers after payment to an actual Web page where premium online content is provided, such as a pay-per-view embedded video or text article, or a secret members-only section of a site, or a registration page on your own system, etc. Since the buyer's browser is expecting to be redirected to an actual Web page rather than a file, it can cause problems if the Landing Page URL points to an actual file download, and some third-party file-hosting services may not respond well to the extra URL query parameters we append to the end of the Landing Page URL when we redirect the buyer there, which may cause technical problems if you attempt to use Redirection for file downloads. This is not usually a problem with Redirection to an actual page URL on your site, as that allows for you to place custom scripting in your landing page that could block direct visits without going through an E-junkie Redirection link to get there.
If you have a file hosted remotely on your server that you wish to provide as a download, you should be using the Single File Download setting instead of Redirection. E-junkie subscribers on our Unlimited plan can go to Manage Products > Product Summary to paste in a Remote URL to the product file on an external server, and have us pull a copy of the remote file from there rather than having to upload the file manually from your own computer. Note this will only work with a static (unchanging) URL that points directly to the actual file itself and ends in the actual filename; it will not work if the Remote URL points to a download page, nor with a dynamic URL that changes from time to time or for different users, nor if the URL does not end in the name of the actual file to be downloaded.