Hotlinking is an expression which refers to the inclusion of images on a given site by using direct links. If you have site A, for instance, and someone creates site B and wishes to add a few images from your site, they can either save the images and then include them on their website or they may simply place links on their site to the images on yours. Consequently, whenever a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own website A, since the images will load directly from your website hosting account. This method is sometimes used for documents and other kinds of files as well. If you wish to prevent 3rd parties from stealing your content and from using your own website hosting account’s resources, you could restrict their ability to use direct links to your files on their websites.

Hotlinking Protection in Shared Web Hosting

It won't require more than several clicks to switch on the hotlink security function that we offer even if this is the first hosting account you use, due to the fact that all our Linux shared web hosting packages feature a rather simple and user-friendly tool that will enable you to prevent direct links to your content. The tool is a component of our innovative Hepsia CP, so it features the exact same intuitive point-and-click interface. As soon as you log in to your account’s back office and visit the Hotlink Protection section, you will simply need to pick the domain or subdomain that you want to protect from a drop-down list. If you'd like to activate this service only for a certain website folder, you've got the option to do that. All websites with enabled hotlink protection will appear inside this section and you could deactivate the service by selecting the checkbox beside the given website and clicking on the Delete button.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting

If you open a semi-dedicated server account and you discover that another person is linking to your files without your consent, you will be able to easily cut them off by switching on the hotlink protection function that we offer you. While the regular technique of doing this is to set up an .htaccess file, we have got a special tool which can execute this automatically and you shall only have to pick the Internet site in question and to decide whether our system should create the necessary file within the primary folder or in a subfolder. The tool is an element of our custom made Hepsia Control Panel and provides the same user-friendly interface, so you'll be able to use it with no complications even in case you have never used any hosting service before. You'll be able to turn off the hotlink protection feature for any website/folder with a click through the same section.