Hotlinking is a term that identifies the addition of images on a particular website by using direct links. In case you have site A, for example, and somebody creates site B and wishes to add a couple of images from your website, they could either save the images and then add them on their Internet site or they may simply put links on their site to the images on yours. Thus, each time a visitor opens website B, site B will steal traffic from your own website A, because the images will load straight from your web hosting account. This process is typically used for documents and other kinds of files too. If you would like to prevent 3rd parties from stealing your content and from using your own web hosting account’s resources, you are able to limit their capability to use direct links to your files on their Internet sites.

Hotlinking Protection in Cloud Hosting

You can easily protect your content if you set up an .htaccess file inside the website’s root folder, but if you don't have previous experience, you can use our hotlink protection tool. The latter is included with all cloud hosting package deals that we offer and can be accessed from the in-house built Hepsia CP. The protection may be enabled in two easy steps - select the domain or subdomain for the site in question, then choose if our system should create the .htaccess file in the primary folder or within a subfolder and you'll be all set. You don't need any coding capabilities or any experience with this sort of matters, as there shall be nothing else to do. If you would like to disable the protection at some point, you will be able to see all of the Internet sites which are protected inside the very same section of the CP with a Delete button alongside each one of them.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting

If you do not want others to use your images on their sites without your permission, you can easily enable the hotlink security feature, which is provided with all semi-dedicated server packages. As opposed to setting up an .htaccess file by hand within the website folder and writing some code in it, which is the conventional method to deny direct linking to files, you may use an exceedingly simple tool, which we have incorporated into the Hepsia CP. By using it, you will only have to pick the website which has to be protected and our system shall do the rest. Moreover, you can make a decision whether the .htaccess file should be created directly inside the root folder or within a subfolder, in case you'd like to enable the hotlink security feature just for some content and not for the entire Internet site. Disabling it is just as easy - you will simply have to mark the checkbox next to the particular site and to click on the Delete button.