Hotlinking is a term which refers to the inclusion of images on a given site by using direct links. In case you have website A, for instance, and someone creates website B and wishes to include a couple of images from your website, they're able to either save the images and then add them on their site or they can simply put links on their site to the images on yours. As a result, every time a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own Internet site A, because the images shall load straight from your web hosting account. This process is oftentimes used for documents and other sorts of files also. If you'd like to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own hosting account’s resources, you could restrict their ability to use direct links to your files on their Internet sites.
Hotlinking Protection in Cloud Web Hosting
It will not require more than a number of clicks to enable the hotlink protection feature which we provide even if this is the very first hosting account that you use, as all our Linux cloud web hosting packages come with a rather simple and user-friendly tool that will enable you to stop direct links to your content. The tool is part of our revolutionary Hepsia CP, so it offers the exact same easy-to-use point-and-click interface. Once you log in to your account’s back office and go to the Hotlink Protection section, you will only need to choose the domain or subdomain that you'd like to protect from a drop-down list. If you want to switch on this service only for a certain site folder, you will have the option to do that. All Internet sites with active hotlink protection will appear within this section and you could turn off the service by selecting the checkbox beside the given site and clicking on the Delete button.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting
If you don't want others to use your images on their sites without your authorization, you can easily activate the hotlink security feature, that is supplied with all semi-dedicated server plans. As an alternative to generating an .htaccess file yourself in the website folder and writing some code inside it, which is the standard approach to deny direct linking to files, you could use a really simple tool, which we've included in the Hepsia Control Panel. With it, you'll simply have to select the site which has to be secured and our system will do the rest. Optionally, you can decide whether the .htaccess file should be set up straight inside the root folder or in a subfolder, when you want to switch on the hotlink security feature only for some content and not for the entire website. Disabling it is just as effortless - you'll only have to mark the checkbox next to the respective website and to click on the Delete button.