Hotlinking, which is oftentimes referred to as bandwidth theft also, identifies linking to images that are on another site. Basically, if you have a website with some images on it, some other person can also create a site and as opposed to using their own images, they could put links directly to your images. While this may not be such a major issue if you have a smaller personal Internet site, it'll be something very serious if the images are copyrighted, since somebody can be aiming to copy your Internet site and trick people. If your hosting package has a restricted monthly bandwidth quota, you will run out of resources without getting real website visitors, as the traffic shall be consumed by the other Internet site. That is why you need to consider shielding your content from being hotlinked - not simply images, but also files, as in rare occasions other sorts of files are linked also.
Hotlinking Protection in Web Hosting
Because our web hosting feature a simple and practical hotlink protection tool, you'll be able to protect your content from displaying on third-party Internet sites with literally just a couple of mouse clicks, even if you do not have much experience with this kind of matters. The tool comes with the Hepsia hosting CP and when you open it, you will just have to select the domain or subdomain that you'd like to protect. Furthermore, you may also choose if the hotlink protection will be active for the default domain root folder or just for a subfolder. You will not have to do anything else, as our system shall create an .htaccess file automatically inside the preferred location and will include the necessary code inside it. All Internet websites with enabled hotlink protection shall be listed within the exact same section, so you can disable this service for any of them with a click.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers
If you don't want other individuals to use your images on their Internet sites without your authorization, you may easily switch on the hotlink security function, that is available with all semi-dedicated server plans. Rather than generating an .htaccess file by hand inside the Internet site folder and writing some code within it, which is the standard way to deny direct linking to files, you may use an exceptionally simple tool, which we've included in the Hepsia CP. Using it, you will simply have to pick the site that has to be protected and our system will do the rest. Furthermore, you can decide whether the .htaccess file should be set up straight in the root folder or in a subfolder, in case you would like to enable the hotlink security function only for some content and not for the entire Internet site. Stopping it is just as fast - you'll simply have to mark the checkbox beside the particular Internet site and to click on the Delete button.