Hotlinking is an expression which identifies the addition of images on a given website by using direct links. In case you have site A, for example, and an individual creates website B and wishes to add a number of images from your site, they are able to either save the images and then include them on their Internet site or they could simply place links on their website to the images on yours. Thus, when a visitor opens site B, site B will steal traffic from your own website A, as the images will load straight from your hosting account. This approach is typically used for documents and other kinds of files too. If you want 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 Website Hosting
Because our Linux shared website hosting packages include a simple and practical hotlink protection tool, you'll be able to shield your content from appearing on third-party sites with literally no more than a couple of clicks, even if you do not have much experience with such matters. The tool comes with the Hepsia hosting Control Panel and when you open it, you'll only have to choose the domain or subdomain that you want to protect. Additionally, you can also choose if the hotlink protection will be active for the default domain root folder or exclusively for a subfolder. You won't have to do anything else, due to the fact that our system will create an .htaccess file automatically within the preferred location and will add the needed code in it. All sites with enabled hotlink protection will be listed within the exact same section, so that you can disable this service for any of them with just a mouse click.
Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting
If you do not want other individuals to use your images on their Internet sites without your permission, you could easily activate the hotlink protection function, that is supplied with all semi-dedicated server plans. Rather than creating an .htaccess file yourself in the site folder and writing some code inside it, which is the conventional approach to deny direct linking to files, you can use an exceedingly simple tool, which we have integrated into the Hepsia CP. With it, you'll simply need to pick the website that needs to be protected and our system will do the rest. Additionally, you can choose whether the .htaccess file should be generated directly in the root folder or in a subfolder, if you want to switch on the hotlink security function just for some content and not for the entire website. Deactivating it is just as effortless - you will only have to mark the checkbox alongside the particular Internet site and to click on the Delete button.