Hotlinking, which is sometimes labeled bandwidth theft also, describes linking to images which are on another site. In simple terms, if you have a site with some images on it, someone else could also develop a website and rather than using their own images, they could put links directly to your images. Although this may not be such a big problem if you have a small personal Internet site, it will be something quite serious if the images are copyrighted, since somebody could be aiming to copy your website and cheat people. If your website hosting package has a restricted monthly bandwidth quota, chances are you'll run out of resources without getting actual visitors, because the traffic shall be consumed by the other site. This is the reason why you need to think about protecting your content from being hotlinked - not just images, but also files, as in rare occasions other types of files are linked too.
Hotlinking Protection in Web Hosting
Since our Linux web hosting feature a simple and practical hotlink protection tool, you shall be able to secure your content from appearing on third-party sites with literally only two clicks, even if you do not have very much experience with such matters. The tool comes with the Hepsia hosting CP and as soon as you open it, you will only have to select the domain or subdomain that you want to protect. Furthermore, you could also pick if the hotlink protection will be enabled for the default domain root folder or just for a subfolder. You'll not need to do anything else, since our system shall create an .htaccess file automatically inside the desired location and will include the needed code within it. All Internet websites with enabled hotlink protection shall be listed in the same section, so you can easily disable this service for any of them with just a click.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers
If you have a semi-dedicated server account with our company and you find out that another person has hotlinked any of your images, you can use the security tool that we have designed and integrated into our in-house built Hepsia hosting Control Panel. As soon as you switch on this function, a server-generated image shall appear on the third-party website in place of your actual images. You'll only need to check out the Hotlink Protection section in the CP and choose the domain or subdomain your Internet site uses from a convenient drop-down menu - it is as basic as that. If needed, you'll also have the option to switch on the function only for a specific subfolder and not for the website in general. Deactivating the feature is as easy - get back to the exact same section, check the box next to the particular Internet site and then press the Delete button.