Hotlinking is an expression which refers to the inclusion of images on a particular site via direct links. When you have site A, for example, and an individual creates site B and wants to include a number of images from your site, they could 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. Thus, every time a visitor opens site B, site B will steal traffic from your own Internet site A, since the images will load from your hosting account. This method is typically used for documents and other kinds of files as well. If you wish to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own website hosting account’s resources, you can limit their ability to use direct links to your files on their Internet sites.
Hotlinking Protection in Hosting
It won't take more than several mouse clicks to activate the hotlink protection feature which we offer even if this is the 1st hosting account that you use, as all our Linux hosting packages feature a simple and easy to work with tool that will enable you to prevent direct links to your content. The tool is a component of our advanced Hepsia CP, so it features the exact same intuitive point-and-click interface. After you log in to your account’s back office and visit the Hotlink Protection section, you'll simply have to choose the domain or subdomain that you would like to secure from a drop-down list. If you would like to activate this feature only for a certain site folder, you've got the option to do that. All sites with active hotlink protection shall appear inside this section and you can easily deactivate the service by selecting the checkbox beside the given site and clicking on the Delete button.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting
If you do not want others to use your images on their Internet sites without your consent, you can easily switch on the hotlink protection function, which is supplied with all semi-dedicated server packages. As an alternative to setting up an .htaccess file yourself inside the website folder and writing some code inside it, which is the common approach to deny direct linking to files, you can use an exceptionally simple tool, that we have integrated into the Hepsia Control Panel. From it, you will simply have to select the site that needs to be secured and our system will do the rest. Furthermore, you can choose whether the .htaccess file will be set up straight inside the root folder or in a subfolder, in case you would like to enable the hotlink security feature just for some content and not for the whole website. Stopping it is just as simple - you will only need to mark the checkbox beside the respective site and to click on the Delete button.