DLGuard is in essence a set of PHP scripts for use on web servers that provide web forms and business logic for handling all areas of website sales. The shopping cart supports single and multiple product sales along with membership sales. Selling site membership for premium content is one of the hot trends on the web currently due to the passive income stream it provides.

DLGuard software has long been providing website owners with an economical and automated means of selling ebooks/software/any digital media from their own domain. This DLGuard review covers 36 months using the product to highlight its key features and its principal constraint.

After a simple product installation on a web server the scripts provide customizable checkout and shopping cart pages. Most users will want to modify the scripts so the look & feel matches their site’s design (requires PHP scripting skills). Setting up an inventory of digital files is all handled through the admin console for the product. I started out writing ebooks and selling them using DLGuard so managing individual PDF files was a trivial task. It would be just as easy with MP3/Wav/image/software files.

The checkout script integrates with a dozen payment providers (including Paypal) and seamlessly automates sending auto-respond emails to customers with their individual download link. Customer tracking and reporting is all stored in the products database for future reference. This is required for refunds, but also serves a cross-selling purpose if you wish to promote future products using loyal customer mailing lists. The product can also support promotional coupons during checkout.

Download link security will however always be the most important feature in digital sales applications. DLGuard protects link by allowing you to configure two settings – restricting the number of download attempts that can be made and setting an expiration time limit on the link. This goes a long way to restricting malicious sharing of the download link.

The majority of DLGuard users run multiple sites. The one constraint that the product has in this regard is the two domain license limit. If you wish to install a shopping cart on more than two sites then you will need more licenses. Alternately, you could set up DLGuard on one domain server that handles sales from your multiple sites (the only flaw being that the checkout page design would not match your the design of all the websites).

On the face of it, DLGuard is reasonably priced and completely automates website selling and the delivery of digital products links. While users miss out on the promotional opportunities of having their products on larger hosted services, it is a good choice for those who are happy to market their own products and want a low maintenance solution to selling online.