Are you offering some kind of free download on your website or blog? Maybe you’re giving away a free e-book for marketing purposes and you want to know how many people have downloaded it thus far? The trouble is that Google Analytics may not supply this kind of information for you.

To overcome this mild shortcoming, you may want to consider the DownloadCounter WordPress plug-in. This plug-in will track the number of times a file has been downloaded from your site, giving you an accurate representation of how well that product is doing and how popular it has been.

This doesn’t work automatically with all files, of course, as you could be overwhelmed with the amount of stats available. Instead, this plug-in can automatically generate a special link and code that you then embed in your website. You can manage your chosen files through the administration page.

More information can be found on paran0id’s blog. The plug-in has not been updated since 2006, but it still seems to work for most current users. Here is the direct download link, which is also representative of the links the plug-in creates.