CNET’s Download.com is one of the most popular sites for downloading softwares. If you are a software developer, I strongly recommend listing your site on Download.com for the following reasons:
Firstly, from my own experience (listing my color picker) I noticed that this is a great way to reach wider audience. Because your software not only appears on Download.com but on their whole network of sites (see AdesClrPicker on ZDNet.com, ZDNet Australia, TechRepublic, The New York Times, CNET Asia, CNET UK…etc) over 20 sites.
Getting your software on Download.com is already great, but getting it on more than 20 popular sites is even better.
Secondly, listing your software on Download.com can save you bandwidth, especially if your software is big in size or if the download traffic is too high. Download.com can host your software on their server for unlimited amount of downloads.
It’s also the trusted source of download for your customers, unlike many free file hosting services that could hurt your reputation.
Thirdly, I see that other smaller download sites see Download.com as their source for new softwares and software updates. So, getting your software on Download.com means — getting your software on hundreds of other smaller sites for free.
How much it costs? Is it worth the money?
Uploading your software to Download.com is done through its other site Upload.com. They have two different listing packages; one costs $9/month and another $99/month (see details).
I took $9/month package, with what I have listed above I would say it totally worths the price!
P.S Consider listing your software on Snapfiles.com and Tucows.com too.
I notice that they have free listing as well. why not use the free service?
I guess it is good to have your own little software.
nice review…good to know
free service won’t let you update your software, it’s a one time thing. and after you submit your software, it will only be online… i don’t know after 3-6 months. because of the queue.
Download.com is my favourite site. It is a great source for me to find software that I need.
How long have you had it on there? Long enough to see what the results are like? I would love to know some statistics.
newly listed, will blog about the results in the future
Filehippo.com & Softpedia are also trusted download sites, maybe you could get your software on them
I regularly use download.com to download software. It is a reliable site which doesn’t have any dodgey popups and the like. It also seems to regularly appear high in the SERPs so you can definitely see why it would be good for promoting your software online. The fact that it is a seeder site to other download sites is an added bonus!
John
Rajaie, thanks for the links. I will check filehippo, my program is already on softpedia.
Thanks for the advice, I wonder if there is something similar to help drive downloads of ebooks!
Good advice. I am planning to create my own software. Still, the only big difference between the $9 and the free one is download stats (which is very handy). The free service offers this:
- Free product modifications allow you to update your listing as your product evolves
so it’s not static and about the listing time:
Due to overwhelming demand, Free Listings may take an additional 2-3 weeks to process on top of the normal 15-day processing time.
So we are looking at a little over a month, not bad at all.
I might just choose the $9 one because it’s very cheap and I love stats hehe.
Post a message in the forum if you’d like more detail on how to do either.
Submitting to software directories like Download.com can also get you some high authority backlinks to your site which can help with SEO.
There are literally hundreds of places where you can submit to online that are good for this.
maybe do you have useful source getting tool for free…thanks
It depends, listing your software to all possible download websites is a must for all software developers, however gaining a couple of quality websites could help you even more. Let me give you an example. I listed my software on download.com and I only received a couple of downloads while listing it on a smaller website such as downloadbestsoft.com sent me almost one thousands visitors in one month. I know it’s not much but think about having ten websites like this. Not to mention Lifehacker.com, just try to obtain a review there and when you will be listed on the first page you can get like 30.000 visitors in 1 day. One of my friends did this, his hosting account was a shared one and his hosting provider called him asking him if he his aware of this huge amount of traffic. What I am trying to say here is that is almost useless if you’re having you’re software listed on 1000 downloads websites. Get 10 websites such as downloadbestsoft.com, lifehacker.com, howtogeek.com and so on and see the benefits for the long term. There is only one problem, to hope that you will be accepted by those guys but if you’re software is really something useful I’m pretty sure that no one will say no so good luck.