Hotlinking is an expression which refers to the addition of images on a given website by using direct links. When you have site A, for example, and an individual creates website B and wishes to add a few images from your website, they're able to either save the images and then add them on their website or they may simply place links on their website to the images on yours. Subsequently, whenever a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own Internet site A, as the images will load directly from your website hosting account. This technique is typically used for documents and other sorts of files as well. If you'd like to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own web hosting account’s resources, you are able to limit their ability to use direct links to your files on their Internet sites.

Hotlinking Protection in Shared Web Hosting

It shall not require more than a few clicks to enable the hotlink protection feature which we offer even if this is the first website hosting account that you use, due to the fact that all of our Linux shared web hosting come with a simple and easy-to-use tool that will allow you to prevent direct links to your content. The tool is a component of our revolutionary Hepsia CP, so it has the exact same intuitive point & click interface. As soon as you log in to your account’s back office and navigate to the Hotlink Protection section, you will only have to select the domain or subdomain you want to protect from a drop-down list. If you'd like to activate this feature only for a particular Internet site folder, you've got the option to do that. All websites with enabled hotlink protection shall appear within this section and you can disable the service by selecting the checkbox alongside the given website and clicking on the Delete button.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting

If you don't want other people to use your images on their sites without your authorization, you may easily enable the hotlink security function, which is provided with all semi-dedicated server plans. As an alternative to setting up an .htaccess file by hand in the Internet site folder and writing some code inside it, which is the conventional method to deny direct linking to files, you can use a very simple tool, which we've included in the Hepsia Control Panel. Using it, you'll simply have to pick the Internet site which has to be protected and our system will do the rest. Additionally, you can choose if the .htaccess file should be generated directly in the root folder or within a subfolder, if you'd like to switch on the hotlink protection function only for some content and not for the entire website. Disabling it is just as easy - you will only have to mark the checkbox alongside the respective Internet site and to click on the Delete button.