Rapidshare, is probably a classic example of file hosting service that has been the most successful example of doing business by uploading and downloading user generated and shared content. Let’s try to see:

1. What is Rapidshare?
2. What it means to a normal user?
3. What are the benefits it can give you?
4. How can you use rapidshare to download stuff?
5. How can you search rapidshare to get the most out of it?
6. How can you get premium account with rapidshare by sharing files which will be downloaded?
7. How can you use rapidshare to generate money (yes, it’s a viable business model)?

Let’s answer these questions and I am sure we’ll cover everything related to rapidshare. Consider this as a tutorial and one stop shop for know everything about rapidshare and similar services.

1. What is RapidShare?

This is what Wikipedia has to say

RapidShare is a German owned one-click hosting pay- and free-service (with limitations) website that operates from Switzerland and is financed by the subscriptions of paying users. Rapidshare is one of the world’s largest file-hosting sites with millions of files stored on its servers. According to Alexa, Rapidshare.com is currently the 12th most visited website.

In simple words, you can use rapidshare to upload files up to 200 MB each and share that link with a friend for her/him to download.

2. What does Rapidshare mean to a normal user?

For a normal user it’s a platform to share and download applications, movies, music and literally everything that can be downloaded from Internet. You just need to know the link of download and you are good to go.

3. How can you benefit from Rapidshare?

Well, the benefits are multi fold. One, you can share and download files. Two, you can download files of other users if you know the download link. That means there are limitless possibilities for you to get a file which you are not getting otherwise. These files could be both legal and illegal.

Also, the great download speed from Rapidshare makes it a superior platform to download files compared to torrents.

4. How can you use rapidshare to download stuff?

As is the case with most of the services, free download from rapidshare is limited to certain amount of download per hour per IP. So if your internet connection is of dynamic IP you can flush your IP to download more files as a free user. However, this also comes as a disadvantage because your ISP can assign you an IP for your session which was used recently by other user who used rapidshare to download stuff. This means that even though you have not downloaded anything as a free user you cannot download if someone used that IP to download.

This is a classic problem when you are trying to download from office, university or college which has same IP for 100s of users.

You can however, buy a rapidshare premium account to take advantage of both high speed download and over 10 GB continuous download in a day. You can check the advantages you get with a rapidshare premium account over free account here.

5. How can you search rapidshare to get the most out of it?

Well, this is the most typical problem and actually has the most easy solution. The problem is that fact that Rapidshare doesn’t have a search facility because of confidentiality of files of it’s users. However, there are many resources out there both software based and online services which can help you search rapidshare. Just Google "rapidshare search" and you should get what you are looking for.

However, I am more of a believer of the fact that Google can be used to search for almost anything out there which has a web presence and so I use Google to search rapidshare. How do I do it:

Let’s say I am searching for the movie Iron Man, I’d use a search query which is something like this:

"Iron Man" rapidshare.com site:blogspot.com

Let me explain this. Because I am looking for Iron Man, I have used that as the first query and that too in quotes so Google knows that I am looking for Iron Man as a term and not as 2 different words. The next part of the search has rapidshare.com, this means that I am also looking for rapidshare.com along with Iron Man. And the last one is a query modifier i.e. site:blogspot.com. That means I am telling Google to look for Iron Man and/or rapidshare.com only on blogspot.com.

The reason I am using blogspot.com is because I’ll avoid a lot of webspam as blogspot is mostly user generated and is not created by machine.

I am most likely to find results for Iron Man movie to be downloaded from rapidshare using the above query or I can modify and make the query more precise. Something like this:

"Iron Man"+rapidshare.com site:blogspot.com

I added + which tells google to look for pages which have both iron man and rapidshare.com

6. How can you get premium account with rapidshare by sharing files which will be downloaded?

As we just discussed premium account is the best bet if you want to unleash the power of rapidshare.com. You can either buy a rapidshare premium account or ensure that you collect enough points as a free uploader so that you can convert those points into buying a premium rapidshare account. Let me explain:

As a free uploader, when you upload files to rapidshare, rapidshare gives you point every time the file is being downloaded. That means if you are an uploader of Iron Man movie and I download it, you get some points. You can accrue these points to buy a premium account, This means that you’ll have to upload good number of files and ensure that you post them on a lot of forums and blogs so that people download the files and you make points.

7. How can you use rapidshare to generate money (yes, it’s a viable business model)?

Now then, if you are smart, you can extend your knowledge from point six discussed above and generate so many points that you can create multiple premium accounts. Next you can sell these accounts to various buyers for a discounted price thus making money.

We hope that this guide will help you with your quest for using rapidshare more effectively and possibly making some money out of it.