Hotlinking is a widely accepted Internet expression for linking to another website’s images. To put it differently, if you create an Internet site, someone else may want to use the images that you have and instead of downloading them from your site and then uploading them to their Internet site, they could simply put links straight to your Internet site. That way, every time a visitor opens their Internet site, the images shall be loaded from your account, consequently stealing from your own monthly traffic quota, let alone the copyright problems which can arise or that someone may be trying to trick people into believing that they are actually on your site. In rare occasions, documents and other kinds of files may also be linked in the exact same way. To stop this from happening and to avoid this sort of situations, you could activate hotlink protection for your Internet site.
Hotlinking Protection in Website Hosting
You can easily shield your content if you set up an .htaccess file within the website’s root folder, but just in case you do not have previous experience, you should use our hotlink protection tool. The latter is provided with all website hosting package deals we offer and can be accessed from the in-house built Hepsia CP. The protection may be turned on in two simple steps - select the domain or subdomain for the Internet site in question, then choose if our system should create the .htaccess file within the main folder or inside a subfolder and you'll be ready. You don't need any coding capabilities or any experience with such matters, as there shall be nothing else to do. If you'd like to remove the protection at some point, you will be able to see all of the sites which are protected in the very same section of the Control Panel with a Delete button alongside each one of them.
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 can use the security tool that we have created and integrated into our in-house built Hepsia hosting Control Panel. Whenever you activate this feature, a server-generated image will appear on the third-party website as a substitute for your real images. You will only have to visit the Hotlink Protection section within the Control Panel and select the domain or subdomain which your site uses from a practical drop-down menu - it's as easy as that. If required, you shall also have the option to activate the feature only for a specific subfolder and not for the website in general. Deactivating the feature is just as simple - return to the very same section, check the box next to the specific website and then press the Delete button.