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Comment by garganzol | Hacker News Reader

Here is an actionable plan:

1. Create a DNS record for subdomain and name it to something like downloads.byuu.org

2. Put a file there. The preferred naming scheme is to categorize it by product or product category, so something like downloads.byuu.org/emulators/higan.zip will do fine.

3. Start by putting the downloads in non-executable file formats first, e.g. use higan.zip instead of higan.exe. It's a no-brainer for a Windows user to launch the file from ZIP archive

4. Make links to downloads from your main website as you would usually do

5. Everything should be smooth now

6. Your downloads.byuu.org subdomain will slowly gain reputation

7. Once it has an established reputation, you will be able to put .exe files there. Gaining the reputation will take about several months. I would expect about 12 months to be on a safer side

8. Enjoy and be creative

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My main website has a domain authority of 53; a subdomain with the same IP would be seen as the same site (I used to use subdomains and have seen this firsthand); a subdomain with a different IP would start me over which is a very bad thing (I've been struggling with byuu.net in this regard.)

The URL scheme is the convention I follow, but I also include the version# in the file name.

I did put the executable inside of a ZIP archive, along with a text database and a few video pixel shaders. One change I made recently was moving from .7z to .zip since some users don't have 7-zip installed, but I presume Google is smart enough to scan inside 7-zip archives even if Windows isn't (out of the box at least.)

I've been providing these releases for fourteen years now. I have no idea what suddenly changed other than it took about two years to release a new version due to a lot of massive changes.

I appreciate the reply all the same, thank you for taking the time.

They probably calculate different scores depending on the purpose (SEO, safe browsing etc).

If you want to stand your ground you could simply add a password to your archive (works best with 7zip as you can avoid exposing the filename with extension); just mentioning it for the records.

>a subdomain with a different IP would start me over which is a very bad thing

Cannot confirm that. IP is virtual thing in terms of HTTP web hosting. I have experience with attaching fresh IPs to existing domains and attaching fresh domains to old IPs: the only thing that matters for HTTP reputation is DNS. IPs do not really matter unless they are seriously blacklisted by a manual action (which is not your situation I presume).

>Google is smart enough to scan inside 7-zip archives

Google sees raw EXE files as a risk factor. Once domain serves a naked EXE, Google gives it a higher risk score.

Publishing an EXE file inside archive (of any format) significantly lowers that risk because an archive cannot be directly executed by OS.

(Please note that a lot of corporate internet gateways do not allow naked EXE files via HTTP for the very same reason)

Well it would be both, right? A new IP and a new subdomain. When I did that for a wordpress install it had very low (<10) DA. I trust your experience more than my one attempt though.

Also my program was inside a ZIP archive. It did not help me.

I maintain a small project and this works fine for me (though I do directly host executables). The bigger problem is crappy "anti-virus" software flagging it but those get resolved after a release is a few weeks old or so.

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