Hotlinking is a term which identifies the addition of images on a particular Internet site via direct links. If you have site A, for example, and an individual creates website B and wishes to add a few images from your Internet site, they're able to either save the images and then add them on their site or they can simply put links on their Internet site to the images on yours. As a result, every time a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own Internet site A, because the images shall load directly from your website hosting account. This method is usually 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 could limit their capability to use direct links to your files on their websites.

Hotlinking Protection in Shared Hosting

Since our shared hosting feature a simple and convenient hotlink protection tool, you'll be able to shield your content from appearing on third-party sites with literally no more than 2 mouse clicks, even if you do not have a lot of experience with this sort of matters. The tool is included with the Hepsia hosting Control Panel and as soon as you open it, you will just need to select the domain or subdomain you want to protect. In addition, you could also choose if the hotlink protection shall be active for the default domain root folder or exclusively for a subfolder. You shall not need to do anything else, due to the fact that our system shall create an .htaccess file automatically inside the needed location and will include the needed code within it. All sites with active hotlink protection will be listed within exactly the same section, so you may disable this service for any of them with a click.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you do not want others to use your images on their Internet sites without your authorization, you can easily enable the hotlink security feature, that is provided with all semi-dedicated server plans. As opposed to creating an .htaccess file by hand inside the website folder and writing some code within it, which is the traditional method to deny direct linking to files, you may use a really simple tool, which we've incorporated into the Hepsia CP. Using it, you'll simply have to choose the site that has to be secured and our system will do the rest. Also, you can choose whether the .htaccess file needs to be created directly within the root folder or inside a subfolder, if you would like to activate the hotlink security feature only for some content and not for the whole Internet site. Disabling it is just as easy - you'll only need to mark the checkbox alongside the specific Internet site and to click on the Delete button.