Hotlinking, which is occasionally referred to as bandwidth theft too, identifies linking to images which are on another site. Basically, if you have a site with some images on it, somebody else could also build a site and as opposed to using their own images, they can put links straight to your images. Although this may not be such a big problem if you have one small personal site, it'll be something very serious if the images are copyrighted, because somebody may be attempting to copy your Internet site and deceive people. If your hosting package has a limited monthly bandwidth quota, you will run out of resources without getting legitimate website visitors, as the traffic shall be consumed by the other site. That is why you need to consider shielding your content from being hotlinked - not just images, but also files, since in rare occasions other types of files are linked too.
Hotlinking Protection in Cloud Website Hosting
It shall not require more than a number of clicks to switch on the hotlink security feature we provide even if this is the very first web hosting account that you use, since all our cloud 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 part of our innovative Hepsia Control Panel, so it offers the same exact easy-to-use point-and-click interface. Once you log in to your account’s back office and go to the Hotlink Protection section, you'll simply have to select the domain or subdomain that you'd like to secure from a drop-down list. If you wish to activate this service only for a specific Internet site folder, you will have the option to do that. All Internet sites with active hotlink protection will appear within this section and you will be able to deactivate the service by selecting the checkbox beside the given site and pressing the Delete button.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers
Our company offers an uncomplicated solution to secure your content and even if you aren't really tech-savvy, you can take full advantage of it with a couple of clicks. The usual technique to activate server-side hotlink protection is to create an .htaccess file and to add a number of directives in it. With the tool which you will find within the Hepsia Control Panel, included with all semi-dedicated server accounts, you'll only need to choose the Internet site that you need to protect and our system shall create the .htaccess file for you, adding all the required content within it. You can also use this option for only one folder instead of the whole Internet site - you just have to specify where the .htaccess file needs to be created. If you no longer need the hotlink protection to be enabled, you could disable it with a single mouse click via the same exact section of your CP.