Save bandwidth by using P2P

Introduction

The p2p technologies provides solutions, and if you use them in a way you can reduce the usage of bandwidth of your web server because of downloads, making you pay less for your web hosting. But that is not the only thing you can get, you can even increase your website popularity!. How can that be possible?: just use magnet links.

How does it works?

Magnet links are links with specific information about the file: hashes, file name, size, and sometimes an extra source, this last, the extra source is what will help your website. Basically you've to only use magnet links, so, when a visitor wants to download a file (maybe a product), it will use the magnet link to download it from P2P networks and from your website too.
The only requirement is that the visitor requires a P2P client that supports magnet links, personally I recommend Shareaza, because it is free, has no-ads, no spyware, and it connects to four networks.

How to use it?

First you need to have the P2P client, for example Shareaza (the way to create the magnet links is described for Shareaza), you've to place a copy of your file in your website (for example: http://website.com/file.zip), and an other copy in a directory that is shared by Shareaza (for example: the downloads directory), now, open Shareaza, go to library, go to all files, right click the file and click on properties.
Now go to the meta data tab and put some information about the file, when you are done click on OK, right click the file again and select copy URI, click on the link that begins with magnet:; now you are almost done. After that, in your download page, instead of using a normal link like http://website.com/file.zip use the magnet link that Shareaza has just generated for you. At the end of the magnet link you have to add this: &xs=http://website.com/file.zip, of course replacing the http://website.com/file.zip part with the url to the file in your server. And you are done!, now when a visitor uses the magnet link it is going to download the file from both, your web site (as an alternate source) and from P2P networks.

Benefits

Using P2P networks for downloading files it is a good way to reduce the bandwidth usage of your web site caused because of the downloads. So you can use an inexpensive web hosting and make your visitors download from P2P networks, and in many cases means that they can get higher download speed.
The second benefit is that when somebody searches on a P2P network where your file/product is being shared, then they can find, download and try it, so don't forget to add a link to your website in the file!; and as for web pages, it is recommended to add some metadata to the file, so many users can find your file.