Hotlinking is a term which refers to the addition of images on a particular website via direct links. In case you have website A, for instance, and a person creates website B and wishes to add a number 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. As a result, whenever a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own Internet site A, because the images will load straight from your website hosting account. This approach is sometimes used for documents and other types of files too. If you'd like to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own web hosting account’s resources, you could limit their capability to use direct links to your files on their sites.
Hotlinking Protection in Cloud Web Hosting
It will not require more than a few clicks to switch on the hotlink protection feature which we offer you even if this is the very first web hosting account you use, due to the fact that all our Linux cloud web hosting feature a very simple and easy to work with tool that will enable you to stop direct links to your content. The tool is an element of our advanced Hepsia Control Panel, so it has the very same intuitive point-and-click interface. After you log in to your account’s back office and go to the Hotlink Protection section, you'll simply have to choose the domain or subdomain that you'd like to protect from a drop-down list. If you wish to switch on this function only for a particular Internet site folder, you've got the option to do that. All Internet sites with active hotlink protection will appear in 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 Servers
If you have a semi-dedicated server account with us and you discover that somebody has hotlinked any of your images, you may use the protection tool we've created and incorporated into our in-house built Hepsia hosting Control Panel. Whenever you switch on this option, a server-generated image shall appear on the third-party site as a substitute for your real images. You will only need to navigate to the Hotlink Protection section inside the CP and pick the domain or subdomain which your site uses from a practical drop-down menu - it's as basic as that. If necessary, you will also have the option to switch on the function just for a specific subfolder and not for the website in its entirety. Deactivating the protection is just as easy - return to the very same section, check the box alongside the specific site and then press the Delete button.