Hotlinking is a widely accepted Internet phrase for linking to another website’s images. To put it differently, if you create a site, somebody else may want to use the images that you have and rather than downloading them from your Internet site and then uploading them to their own Internet site, they may simply put links directly to your website. In this way, every time a visitor opens their Internet site, the images shall be loaded from your account, thus stealing from your own monthly traffic quota, along with the copyright problems that could develop or that somebody can be trying to trick people into thinking that they are actually on your site. In rare occasions, documents and other kinds of files may also be linked in the exact same way. To stop this from happening and to avoid this type of situations, you may activate hotlink protection for your website.

Hotlinking Protection in Shared Hosting

It will not take more than a number of mouse clicks to enable the hotlink protection feature which we offer you even if this is the 1st web hosting account that you use, since all of our shared hosting plans come with a simple and easy-to-use tool that will permit you to prevent direct links to your content. The tool is part of our advanced Hepsia Control Panel, so it offers the same exact intuitive point & click interface. When you log in to your account’s back office and go to the Hotlink Protection section, you will only need to pick the domain or subdomain you want to secure from a drop-down list. If you wish to activate this function only for a specific site folder, you will have the option to do that. All sites with enabled hotlink protection shall appear within this section and you can easily disable the service by selecting the checkbox alongside the given Internet site and clicking on the Delete button.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you do not want other individuals to use your images on their websites without your approval, you can easily enable the hotlink protection feature, which is offered with all semi-dedicated server package deals. As opposed to setting up an .htaccess file by hand inside the Internet site folder and writing some code inside it, which is the traditional method to deny direct linking to files, you could use an incredibly simple tool, which we've included in the Hepsia Control Panel. Using it, you'll only need to pick the website that needs to be secured and our system shall do the rest. Furthermore, you can make a decision whether the .htaccess file needs to be set up directly within the root folder or inside a subfolder, if you'd like to switch on the hotlink security function just for some content and not for the entire Internet site. Disabling it is just as effortless - you will simply need to mark the checkbox beside the particular site and to click on the Delete button.