Hotlinking is a term that describes the addition of images on a given site through the use of direct links. If you have site A, for example, and somebody creates site B and wishes to include a few images from your website, they are able to either save the images and then include them on their Internet site or they can simply place links on their website to the images on yours. Consequently, every time a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own website A, since the images will load from your web hosting account. This approach is oftentimes used for documents and other sorts of files too. If you would like to prevent 3rd parties from stealing your content and from using your own web hosting account’s resources, you can restrict their capability to use direct links to your files on their sites.

Hotlinking Protection in Cloud Hosting

Due to the fact that our cloud plans include a simple and handy hotlink protection tool, you will be able to protect your content from showing on third-party Internet sites with literally only two clicks, even if you do not have a lot of experience with this type of matters. The tool is available in the Hepsia hosting CP and as soon as you open it, you'll only have to choose the domain or subdomain you want to protect. Additionally, you may also select if the hotlink protection will be enabled for the default domain root folder or just for a subfolder. You shall not have to do anything else, due to the fact that our system will create an .htaccess file automatically inside the desired location and shall add the needed code inside it. All websites with active hotlink protection shall be listed within the exact same section, so that you can disable this service for any of them with a click.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you have a semi-dedicated server account with our company and you notice that another person has hotlinked any of your images, you can use the security tool which we have developed and included in our in-house built Hepsia hosting CP. Whenever you activate this feature, a server-generated image will appear on the third-party website as a substitute for your actual images. You'll only need to go to the Hotlink Protection section inside the Control Panel and select the domain or subdomain which your website uses from a practical drop-down menu - it's as easy as that. If required, you'll also have the option to enable the feature only for a specific subfolder and not for the website in general. Deactivating the feature is as easy - get back to the exact same section, check the box alongside the particular Internet site and then click on the Delete button.