Hotlinking is an expression that identifies the inclusion of images on a given Internet site by using direct links. If you have site A, for example, and someone creates website B and wants to add a number of images from your Internet site, they are able to either save the images and then include them on their Internet site or they could simply place links on their website to the images on yours. Subsequently, when a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own website A, since the images will load straight from your web hosting account. This technique is usually 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 could limit their ability to use direct links to your files on their Internet sites.

Hotlinking Protection in Cloud Website Hosting

You can easily protect your content if you generate an .htaccess file in the website’s root folder, but just in case you don't have previous experience, you can use our hotlink protection tool. The latter is included with all cloud website hosting plans that we offer and can be accessed using the in-house built Hepsia Control Panel. The protection could be enabled in two simple steps - choose the domain or subdomain for the Internet site in question, then select if our system should create the .htaccess file within the primary folder or inside a subfolder and you shall be ready. You don't require any coding skills or any experience with this sort of matters, as there shall be nothing else to do. If you wish to remove the protection at some time, you could see all the websites which are protected within the very same section of the CP with a Delete button beside each of them.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting

If you have a semi-dedicated server account with our company and you find out that somebody has hotlinked any of your images, you should use the security tool we have designed and integrated into our in-house built Hepsia hosting CP. Whenever you switch on this option, a server-generated image will appear on the third-party Internet site in place of your real images. You'll only need to visit the Hotlink Protection section within the CP and select the domain or subdomain that your Internet site uses from a convenient drop-down menu - it is as basic as that. When necessary, you will also have the option to activate the function only for a specific subfolder and not for the website in its entirety. Deactivating the function is equally easy - get back to the very same section, check the box beside the given website and then click on the Delete button.