Hotlinking is a term which represents the addition of images on a given Internet site by using direct links. In case you have website A, for instance, and an individual creates site B and wishes to add a number of images from your Internet site, they can either save the images and then add them on their site or they could simply place links on their Internet site to the images on yours. Consequently, whenever a visitor opens website B, site B will steal traffic from your own site A, because the images will load directly from your website hosting account. This process is typically used for documents and other types of files too. If you'd like to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own website hosting account’s resources, you can restrict their capability to use direct links to your files on their sites.
Hotlinking Protection in Shared Hosting
You can easily secure your content if you create an .htaccess file inside the website’s root folder, but in case you do not have previous experience, you can use our hotlink protection tool. The latter comes with all shared hosting package deals that we offer and can be accessed using the in-house built Hepsia Control Panel. The protection can be enabled in 2 basic steps - pick the domain or subdomain for the website in question, then select if our system should set up the .htaccess file inside the primary folder or within a subfolder and you'll be all set. You don't need any computer programming skills or any experience with this sort of matters, because there shall be nothing else to do. If you wish to remove the protection at some time, you can see all the websites that are protected within the exact same section of the CP with a Delete button beside each one of them.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting
If you do not want other individuals to use your images on their websites without your consent, you could easily activate the hotlink security feature, that is provided with all semi-dedicated server plans. Rather than creating an .htaccess file yourself within the Internet site folder and writing some code in it, which is the traditional method to deny direct linking to files, you could use an incredibly simple tool, which we've incorporated into the Hepsia CP. By using it, you will only have to choose the site that has to be secured and our system will do the rest. Optionally, you can make a decision whether the .htaccess file should be generated directly inside the root folder or within a subfolder, in case you want to activate the hotlink security function just for some content and not for the entire website. Stopping it is just as effortless - you'll only have to mark the checkbox beside the particular Internet site and to click on the Delete button.