Hotlinking is an expression which identifies the addition of images on a particular website through the use of direct links. When you have website A, for instance, and a person creates site B and wants to add a couple of images from your Internet site, they are able to either save the images and then include them on their website or they can simply place links on their site to the images on yours. As a result, each time a visitor opens site B, site B will steal traffic from your own website A, because the images shall load straight from your website hosting account. This method is oftentimes used for documents and other types of files as well. If you want to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own hosting account’s resources, you can restrict their ability to use direct links to your files on their Internet sites.

Hotlinking Protection in Website Hosting

It shall not take more than a couple of clicks to switch on the hotlink protection function that we offer you even if this is the first website hosting account which you use, as all of our Linux website hosting come with a very simple and easy-to-use tool that will allow you to prevent direct links to your content. The tool is a component of our advanced Hepsia CP, so it offers the same easy-to-use point & click interface. After you log in to your account’s back office and go to the Hotlink Protection section, you will only have to select the domain or subdomain that you want to secure from a drop-down list. If you would like to switch on this function only for a specific Internet site folder, you've got the option to do that. All Internet sites with active hotlink protection shall appear within this section and you can deactivate the service by selecting the checkbox next to the given website and clicking on the Delete button.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting

Our company offers a simple solution to secure your whole content and even if you aren't very tech-savvy, you'll be able to take full advantage of it with a couple of mouse clicks. The usual technique to enable server-side hotlink security is to set up an .htaccess file and to include a few directives inside it. With the tool that you will find inside the Hepsia Control Panel, provided with all of the semi-dedicated server accounts, you will simply need to select the website which you would like to protect and our system shall create the .htaccess file for you, including all the needed content in it. You may also use this feature for only one folder instead of the whole Internet site - you just need to specify where the .htaccess file has to be created. If you no longer need the hotlink protection to be switched on, you may deactivate it with a single mouse click from the exact same section of your CP.