Hotlinking is a term that refers to the inclusion of images on a given Internet site by using direct links. When you have website A, for instance, and an individual creates site B and wishes to add a couple of images from your website, they're able to either save the images and then add them on their website or they could simply put links on their site to the images on yours. Consequently, every time a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own Internet site A, as the images will load straight from your website hosting account. This method is sometimes used for documents and other sorts of files as well. If you would like to prevent 3rd parties from stealing your content and from using your own hosting account’s resources, you could limit their ability to use direct links to your files on their websites.

Hotlinking Protection in Web Hosting

It won't take more than a couple of mouse clicks to enable the hotlink security feature which we provide even if this is the 1st website hosting account which you use, due to the fact that all our web hosting plans feature a very simple and user-friendly tool that will allow you to prevent direct links to your content. The tool is part of our revolutionary Hepsia Control Panel, so it offers the exact same easy-to-use point-and-click interface. After you log in to your account’s back office and go to the Hotlink Protection section, you will simply have to choose the domain or subdomain you want to protect from a drop-down list. If you wish to enable this function only for a specific site folder, you will have the option to do that. All Internet sites with active hotlink protection will appear inside this section and you could turn off the service by selecting the checkbox next to the given website and clicking on the Delete button.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you have a semi-dedicated server account with us and you discover that somebody has hotlinked any of your images, you should use the protection tool which we have developed and incorporated into our in-house built Hepsia hosting Control Panel. When you enable this option, a server-generated image will appear on the third-party Internet site in place of your real images. You'll only need to check out the Hotlink Protection section inside the Control Panel and choose the domain or subdomain your site uses from a handy drop-down menu - it's as simple as that. If needed, you will also have the option to enable the feature for a particular subfolder and not for the website in general. Deactivating the protection is just as effortless - get back to the very same section, check the box beside the particular website and then press the Delete button.