Hotlinking is a commonly accepted Internet phrase for linking to another website’s images. Basically, if you create an Internet site, somebody else may want to use the images which you have and rather than downloading them from your Internet site and then uploading them to their website, they can simply put links to your Internet site. This way, every time a visitor opens their website, the images shall be loaded from your account, consequently stealing from your own monthly traffic quota, in addition to the copyright issues which could develop or that somebody could be trying to deceive people into thinking that they are actually on your site. In rare instances, documents and other kinds of files could also be linked in the same exact way. To prevent this from happening and to avoid this sort of situations, you may permit hotlink protection for your website.
Hotlinking Protection in Shared Hosting
Because our shared hosting services feature a simple and convenient hotlink protection tool, you shall be able to defend your content from displaying on third-party websites with literally just 2 mouse clicks, even if you don't have much experience with such matters. The tool comes with the Hepsia hosting CP and when you open it, you will only need to choose the domain or subdomain which you want to protect. Furthermore, you may also select if the hotlink protection will be active for the default domain root folder or exclusively for a subfolder. You shall not have to do anything else, as our system will create an .htaccess file automatically in the needed location and shall add the needed code in it. All Internet websites with active hotlink protection will be listed within the very same section, so you can disable this service for each of them with a click.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting
If you have a semi-dedicated server account with our company and you discover that someone has hotlinked any of your images, you may use the security tool we've created and incorporated into our in-house built Hepsia hosting CP. As soon as you activate this feature, a server-generated image will appear on the third-party site as a substitute for your real images. You'll only need to navigate to the Hotlink Protection section within the CP and choose the domain or subdomain which your website uses from a handy drop-down menu - it's as elementary as that. If necessary, you'll also have the option to enable the function for a specific subfolder and not for the website in general. Deactivating the function is just as easy - go back to exactly the same section, check the box beside the particular website and then click on the Delete button.