Hotlinking is a largely accepted Internet term for linking to another website’s images. Quite simply, if you create an Internet site, some other person may want to use the images you have and rather than downloading them from your website and then uploading them to their own Internet site, they could simply put links to your site. In this way, when 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 which can present themselves or that somebody may be trying to trick people into thinking that they are actually on your Internet site. In rare occasions, documents and other kinds of files could also be linked in the very same way. To prevent this from happening and to avoid this sort of situations, you may activate hotlink protection for your Internet site.

Hotlinking Protection in Cloud Web Hosting

As our Linux cloud web hosting services include a simple and practical hotlink protection tool, you'll be able to protect your content from appearing on third-party Internet sites with literally just two mouse clicks, even if you don't have a lot of experience with this type of matters. The tool is included with the Hepsia hosting Control Panel and once you open it, you will just need to pick the domain or subdomain that you want to protect. In addition, you could also pick if the hotlink protection will be active for the default domain root folder or exclusively for a subfolder. You will not have to do anything else, because our system will create an .htaccess file automatically within the preferred location and shall add the needed code in it. All sites with enabled hotlink protection will be listed inside the exact same section, so you could disable this service for any of them with just a click.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting

If you have a semi-dedicated server account with us and you discover that someone has hotlinked any of your images, you can use the security tool we have developed and incorporated into our in-house built Hepsia hosting CP. When you switch on this function, a server-generated image shall appear on the third-party Internet site in place of your real images. You'll only have to visit the Hotlink Protection section in the Control Panel and select the domain or subdomain which your site uses from a convenient drop-down menu - it's as simple as that. If necessary, you will also have the option to switch on the function only for a specific subfolder and not for the website in its entirety. Deactivating the protection is as effortless - go back to the very same section, check the box alongside the specific Internet site and then click on the Delete button.