Hotlinking is a largely accepted Internet expression for linking to another website’s images. Quite simply, if you develop an Internet site, someone else may want to use the images which you have and instead of downloading them from your Internet site and then uploading them to their own site, they may simply put links directly to your Internet site. That way, whenever a visitor opens their Internet site, the images will be loaded from your account, as a result stealing from your own monthly traffic quota, not to mention the copyright issues which could present themselves or that somebody may be trying to deceive people into believing that they are actually on your Internet site. In rare occasions, documents and other kinds of files can also be linked in the very same way. To stop this from happening and to avoid such situations, you can activate hotlink protection for your website.
Hotlinking Protection in Web Hosting
It shall not require more than a couple of mouse clicks to switch on the hotlink security function which we provide even if this is the 1st website hosting account you use, as all of our Linux web hosting service come with a quite simple and easy-to-use tool that will permit you to stop direct links to your content. The tool is part of our advanced Hepsia Control Panel, so it has the very same easy-to-use point-and-click interface. After you log in to your account’s back office and go to the Hotlink Protection section, you will only need to select the domain or subdomain that you'd like to secure from a drop-down list. If you would like to activate this function only for a certain site folder, you've got the option to do that. All sites with active hotlink protection will appear within this section and you can easily turn off the service by selecting the checkbox next to the given Internet site and clicking on the Delete button.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers
We provide you with an effective solution to shield your entire content and even if you are not quite tech-savvy, you are able to take full advantage of it with a few clicks. The standard way for you to activate server-side hotlink security is to generate an .htaccess file and to include a number of directives in it. With the tool that you will find in the Hepsia CP, which comes with all semi-dedicated server accounts, you will only need to choose the site which you want to secure and our system shall create the .htaccess file for you, including all the necessary content in it. You may also use this feature for only one folder as opposed to the entire website - you just have to specify where the .htaccess file should be set up. If you no longer want the hotlink protection to be switched on, you can disable it with one mouse click through the exact same section of your CP.