Hotlinking is an expression that represents the addition of images on a particular website through the use of direct links. In case you have site A, for instance, and a person creates site B and wishes to add a few images from your website, they are able to either save the images and then include them on their site or they may simply place links on their Internet site to the images on yours. Thus, every time a visitor opens website B, site B will steal traffic from your own site A, since the images shall load straight from your web hosting account. This approach is typically used for documents and other kinds of files also. If you wish to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own hosting account’s resources, you could restrict their capability to use direct links to your files on their websites.
Hotlinking Protection in Cloud Hosting
It won't take more than a few mouse clicks to switch on the hotlink security feature which we offer even if this is the very first web hosting account you use, due to the fact that all of our Linux cloud hosting plans feature a simple and easy to work with tool that will allow you to prevent direct links to your content. The tool is an element of our advanced Hepsia CP, so it features the exact same intuitive point-and-click interface. After you log in to your account’s back office and go to the Hotlink Protection section, you'll simply need to pick the domain or subdomain that you would like to secure from a drop-down list. If you'd like to switch on this function only for a certain site folder, you will have the option to do that. All websites with enabled hotlink protection shall appear in this section and you can easily turn off the service by selecting the checkbox beside the given Internet site and clicking on the Delete button.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers
If you create a semi-dedicated server account and you discover that somebody is linking to your files without your permission, you may easily cut them off by activating the hotlink protection function which we offer you. While the typical method of doing that is to create an .htaccess file, we have got a special tool which is able to perform this automatically and you shall only have to pick the Internet site in question and to choose whether our system should set up the needed file inside the main folder or in a subfolder. The tool is an element of our custom Hepsia CP and provides exactly the same user-friendly interface, so you'll be able to use it without difficulties even if you have never used any hosting service before. You may switch off the hotlink protection feature for any website/folder with a click through the same section.