Hotlinking is an expression which describes the addition of images on a particular site via direct links. If you have website A, for example, and someone creates site B and wants to add a few images from your Internet site, they are able to either save the images and then add them on their Internet site or they can simply place links on their website to the images on yours. Consequently, each time a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own Internet site A, as the images will load straight from your website hosting account. This approach is sometimes used for documents and other sorts of files also. If you want to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own website hosting account’s resources, you are able to limit their capability to use direct links to your files on their Internet sites.

Hotlinking Protection in Cloud Website Hosting

Due to the fact that our cloud website hosting plans provide a simple and convenient hotlink protection tool, you will be able to secure your content from appearing on third-party sites with literally only two mouse clicks, even if you don't have very much experience with such matters. The tool is available in the Hepsia hosting Control Panel and once you open it, you will only have to select the domain or subdomain which you want to protect. Additionally, you may also select if the hotlink protection shall be enabled for the default domain root folder or only for a subfolder. You shall not need to do anything else, due to the fact that our system will create an .htaccess file automatically within the desired location and will add the required code in it. All sites with active hotlink protection shall be listed inside the same section, so you can disable this service for each of them with just a click.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you have a semi-dedicated server account with us and you find out that someone has hotlinked any of your images, you may use the security tool we've developed and incorporated into our in-house built Hepsia hosting Control Panel. When you switch on this feature, a server-generated image will appear on the third-party website rather than your actual images. You'll only need to check out the Hotlink Protection section within the Control Panel and choose the domain or subdomain that your website uses from a practical drop-down menu - it's as easy as that. If necessary, you will also have the option to switch on the function for a particular subfolder and not for the website altogether. Deactivating the protection is just as easy - get back to exactly the same section, check the box beside the given Internet site and then press the Delete button.