Hotlinking is a term that identifies the addition of images on a given Internet site through direct links. When you have site A, for example, and a person creates site B and wants to include a few images from your site, they can either save the images and then include them on their Internet site or they can simply place links on their site to the images on yours. Subsequently, when a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own site A, as the images shall load straight from your hosting account. This process is typically used for documents and other kinds of files also. If you want to prevent 3rd 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 Website Hosting

It won't require more than a number of mouse clicks to activate the hotlink security function we offer you even if this is the 1st hosting account you use, since all of our Linux shared website hosting include a very simple and user-friendly tool that will enable you to stop direct links to your content. The tool is a component of our innovative Hepsia Control Panel, so it provides the same exact easy-to-use point-and-click interface. Once you log in to your account’s back office and navigate to the Hotlink Protection section, you will simply have to pick the domain or subdomain that you want to secure from a drop-down list. If you would like to activate this service only for a specific website folder, you will have the option to do that. All websites with active hotlink protection shall appear inside this section and you could disable 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 don't want other individuals to use your images on their sites without your authorization, you can easily switch on the hotlink protection function, which is offered with all semi-dedicated server plans. As an alternative to setting up an .htaccess file manually within the site folder and writing some code in it, which is the traditional approach to deny direct linking to files, you may use a really simple tool, that we have included in the Hepsia CP. By using it, you'll only have to pick the Internet site which needs to be secured and our system shall do the rest. Additionally, you can make a decision if the .htaccess file needs to be generated directly within the root folder or in a subfolder, when you would like to enable the hotlink protection feature only for some content and not for the whole site. Deactivating it is just as easy - you will only have to mark the checkbox next to the specific website and to click on the Delete button.