Hotlinking is a largely accepted Internet expression for linking to another website’s images. In other words, if you build an Internet site, some other person may want to use the images which you have and rather than downloading them from your site and then uploading them to their Internet site, they may simply put links straight to your site. This way, every time a visitor opens their Internet site, the images shall be loaded from your account, consequently stealing from your own monthly traffic quota, along with the copyright problems which could arise or that somebody may be trying to trick people into thinking that they are in fact on your website. In rare occasions, documents and other types of files can also be linked in the exact same way. To stop this from happening and to avoid such situations, you could activate hotlink protection for your Internet site.
Hotlinking Protection in Hosting
You can easily secure your content if you set up an .htaccess file within 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 supplied with all hosting package deals that we offer and could be accessed from the in-house built Hepsia CP. The protection may be enabled in two simple steps - pick the domain or subdomain for the site in question, then choose if our system should create the .htaccess file inside the main folder or inside a subfolder and you'll be ready. You don't require any coding expertise or any experience with this sort of matters, as there shall be nothing else to do. If you'd like to turn off the protection at some time, you could see all of the Internet sites that are protected within the exact same section of the Control Panel with a Delete button alongside each of them.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting
If you have a semi-dedicated server account with us and you discover that someone has hotlinked any of your images, you may use the security tool we have developed and incorporated into our in-house built Hepsia hosting CP. Whenever you enable this function, a server-generated image shall appear on the third-party website as a substitute for your real images. You will only need to check out the Hotlink Protection section inside the Control Panel and pick the domain or subdomain your site uses from a handy drop-down menu - it is as elementary as that. If required, you shall also have the option to enable the function only for a specific subfolder and not for the website as a whole. Deactivating the function is as easy - return to the same section, check the box alongside the specific site and then click on the Delete button.