Hotlinking is a term that represents the inclusion of images on a given website through direct links. In case you have site A, for example, and somebody creates website B and wants to include a few images from your site, they are able to either save the images and then add them on their website or they could simply place links on their website to the images on yours. As a result, every time a visitor opens site B, site B will steal traffic from your own site A, because the images will load straight from your web hosting account. This process is usually used for documents and other types of files as well. If you'd like to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own hosting account’s resources, you could restrict their capability to use direct links to your files on their sites.

Hotlinking Protection in Website Hosting

It won't take more than a number of clicks to enable the hotlink security function we offer even if this is the 1st website hosting account you use, since all our website hosting services include a very 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 has the very same easy-to-use point-and-click interface. As soon as you log in to your account’s back office and navigate to the Hotlink Protection section, you will simply need to choose the domain or subdomain you want to secure from a drop-down list. If you'd like to switch on this feature only for a specific Internet site folder, you've got the option to do that. All Internet sites with active hotlink protection shall appear inside this section and you could deactivate the service by selecting the checkbox beside the given Internet site and pressing 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 enable the hotlink security function, that's provided with all semi-dedicated server package deals. As an alternative to setting up an .htaccess file yourself within the Internet site folder and writing some code within it, which is the conventional approach to deny direct linking to files, you may use an exceptionally simple tool, which we have integrated into the Hepsia Control Panel. With it, you'll only need to choose the site that should be secured and our system shall do the rest. Also, you can determine whether the .htaccess file will be set up directly inside the root folder or in a subfolder, if you want to switch on the hotlink protection function just for some content and not for the entire website. Stopping it is just as simple - you'll simply need to mark the checkbox next to the particular website and to click on the Delete button.