Hotlinking is a largely accepted Internet expression for linking to another website’s images. Basically, if you develop a website, someone else may want to use the images which you have and rather than downloading them from your Internet site and then uploading them to their website, they can simply put links directly to your Internet site. That way, every time a visitor opens their Internet site, the images will be loaded from your account, consequently stealing from your own monthly traffic quota, in addition to the copyright problems that could appear or that someone can be trying to deceive people into believing that they're actually on your Internet site. In rare instances, documents and other types of files can also be linked in the same exact way. To prevent this from happening and to avoid this sort of situations, you can enable hotlink protection for your Internet site.
Hotlinking Protection in Website Hosting
It won't take more than several clicks to switch on the hotlink protection feature that we provide even if this is the very first web hosting account you use, as all our website hosting plans feature a very simple and easy-to-use tool that will enable you to stop direct links to your content. The tool is part of our revolutionary Hepsia Control Panel, so it features the exact same easy-to-use point & click interface. As soon as you log in to your account’s back office and navigate to the Hotlink Protection section, you will simply need to select the domain or subdomain you want to secure from a drop-down list. If you would like to switch on this feature only for a specific website folder, you will have the option to do that. All websites with active hotlink protection shall appear inside this section and you could disable the service by selecting the checkbox next to the given Internet site and clicking on the Delete button.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers
If you have a semi-dedicated server account with our company and you notice that another person has hotlinked any of your images, you can use the protection tool we've designed and included in our in-house built Hepsia hosting CP. Once you enable this option, a server-generated image will appear on the third-party website as a substitute for your actual images. You'll only need to check out the Hotlink Protection section in the Control Panel and pick the domain or subdomain which your site uses from a handy drop-down menu - it is as elementary as that. If necessary, you'll also have the option to enable the feature for a specific subfolder and not for the website in its entirety. Deactivating the function is just as effortless - return to the same section, check the box next to the specific Internet site and then press the Delete button.