Hotlinking is a term that represents the inclusion of images on a particular website through the use of direct links. In case you have site A, for example, and someone creates website B and wants to add a couple of images from your Internet site, they're able to either save the images and then include them on their website or they may simply place links on their site to the images on yours. Consequently, when a visitor opens site B, site B will steal traffic from your own Internet site A, since the images will load directly from your website hosting account. This approach is oftentimes used for documents and other types of files also. If you wish to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own hosting account’s resources, you are able to limit their capability to use direct links to your files on their sites.

Hotlinking Protection in Shared Website Hosting

It won't require more than a number of mouse clicks to switch on the hotlink protection feature which we offer even if this is the 1st hosting account you use, as all our shared website hosting service include a very simple and easy-to-use tool that will permit you to stop direct links to your content. The tool is a component of our revolutionary Hepsia Control Panel, so it has the same exact intuitive point-and-click interface. When you log in to your account’s back office and navigate to the Hotlink Protection section, you'll only need to pick the domain or subdomain that you'd like to protect from a drop-down list. If you want to switch on this service only for a specific website folder, you will have the option to do that. All sites with active hotlink protection shall appear inside this section and you will be able to disable the service by selecting the checkbox alongside the given website and pressing the Delete button.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers

If you have a semi-dedicated server account with our company and you find out that another person has hotlinked any of your images, you should use the protection tool we have designed and incorporated into our in-house built Hepsia hosting Control Panel. When you enable this function, a server-generated image shall appear on the third-party Internet site instead of your real images. You will only need to go to the Hotlink Protection section in the CP and choose the domain or subdomain which your website uses from a practical drop-down menu - it's as easy as that. If required, you shall also have the option to activate the function only for a particular subfolder and not for the website in general. Deactivating the function is equally simple - return to the same section, check the box beside the particular Internet site and then click on the Delete button.