Hotlinking is an expression which represents the addition of images on a particular site by using direct links. In case you have website A, for instance, and an individual creates website B and wishes to add a few images from your site, they could either save the images and then add them on their site or they can simply place links on their website to the images on yours. Consequently, each time a visitor opens website B, site B will steal traffic from your own website A, because the images shall load directly from your hosting account. This method is typically used for documents and other kinds of files too. If you wish to prevent 3rd parties from stealing your content and from using your own web hosting account’s resources, you can limit their capability to use direct links to your files on their websites.

Hotlinking Protection in Hosting

You can easily shield your content if you create an .htaccess file within the website’s root folder, but in case that you don't have previous experience, you can use our hotlink protection tool. The latter comes with all hosting package deals we offer and can be accessed through the in-house built Hepsia Control Panel. The protection may be activated in two easy steps - pick the domain or subdomain for the website in question, then pick if our system should create the .htaccess file within the primary folder or inside a subfolder and you will be good to go. You do not need any programming expertise or any experience with this sort of matters, as there will be nothing else to do. If you want to disable the protection at some point, you could see all of the websites that are protected in the same exact section of the Control Panel with a Delete button next to each one of them.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you have a semi-dedicated server account with us and you notice that someone has hotlinked any of your images, you may use the protection tool we have created and incorporated into our in-house built Hepsia hosting CP. As soon as you enable this function, a server-generated image will appear on the third-party website as a substitute for your actual images. You'll only need to navigate to the Hotlink Protection section inside the CP and pick the domain or subdomain that your Internet site uses from a convenient drop-down menu - it is as easy as that. If needed, you shall also have the option to activate the function for a specific subfolder and not for the website in its entirety. Deactivating the protection is equally easy - return to the exact same section, check the box beside the given site and then click on the Delete button.