Hotlinking is an expression that refers to the inclusion of images on a particular website through the use of direct links. In case you have website A, for example, and somebody creates site 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 website or they can simply put 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 straight from your hosting account. This process is oftentimes used for documents and other kinds of files too. If you wish to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own web hosting account’s resources, you can limit their ability to use direct links to your files on their Internet sites.

Hotlinking Protection in Cloud Website Hosting

There is a way to avoid the hotlinking of your images by using an .htaccess file within the website’s root directory, but if you aren't very tech-savvy, we furthermore give you a very time and effort saving tool that will permit you to activate the protection with a couple of mouse clicks and without entering any code. The tool could be accessed from the Hepsia CP, provided with all our cloud website hosting and the only 2 things that you'll need to pick are a domain/subdomain from a drop-down menu and if the protection must be activated for the main site folder or for some subfolder. Our system shall do the rest, so you won't have to do anything else manually on your end. If you wish to disable the hotlink protection option eventually, you will just have to come back to the exact same section, to mark the checkbox beside it and to click on the Delete button.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you do not want other people to use your images on their Internet sites without your authorization, you can easily enable the hotlink security feature, that's supplied with all semi-dedicated server package deals. Rather than generating an .htaccess file yourself inside the website folder and writing some code within it, which is the standard method to deny direct linking to files, you may use an exceptionally simple tool, which we have included in the Hepsia Control Panel. With it, you will simply have to choose the website which has to be protected and our system shall do the rest. Also, you can make a decision if the .htaccess file will be set up directly inside the root folder or inside a subfolder, if you want to activate the hotlink security feature only for some content and not for the entire website. Stopping it is just as easy - you will simply have to mark the checkbox beside the respective Internet site and to click on the Delete button.