Hotlinking is an expression which identifies the addition of images on a particular Internet site by using direct links. If you have site A, for example, and someone creates site B and wishes to include a couple of images from your Internet site, they can either save the images and then include them on their Internet site or they can simply place links on their website to the images on yours. Consequently, whenever a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own site A, since the images will load directly from your web hosting account. This technique is usually used for documents and other kinds of files also. If you wish to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own web hosting account’s resources, you'll be able to limit their capability to use direct links to your files on their websites.
Hotlinking Protection in Cloud Hosting
It will not take more than several mouse clicks to switch on the hotlink security feature which we provide even if this is the 1st website hosting account you use, as all of our Linux cloud hosting packages come with a simple and easy to work with tool that will allow you to stop direct links to your content. The tool is part of our advanced Hepsia Control Panel, so it has the same exact easy-to-use point & click interface. After you log in to your account’s back office and visit the Hotlink Protection section, you'll only need to pick the domain or subdomain that you'd like to protect from a drop-down list. If you'd like to switch on this feature only for a certain website folder, you will have the option to do that. All Internet sites with active hotlink protection will appear within this section and you can easily deactivate the service by selecting the checkbox next to the given Internet site and clicking on the Delete button.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting
If you have a semi-dedicated server account with our company and you find out that someone has hotlinked any of your images, you may use the protection tool we have designed and incorporated into our in-house built Hepsia hosting Control Panel. Once you activate this option, a server-generated image will appear on the third-party Internet site instead of your real images. You'll only have to go to the Hotlink Protection section inside the Control Panel and select the domain or subdomain your site uses from a convenient drop-down menu - it's as easy as that. If needed, you'll also have the option to activate the feature just for a specific subfolder and not for the website altogether. Deactivating the feature is as easy - get back to exactly the same section, check the box alongside the particular Internet site and then click on the Delete button.