Hotlinking is a term which represents the addition of images on a given site via direct links. In case you have website A, for instance, and an individual creates website B and wishes to add a few images from your website, they are able to either save the images and then add them on their site or they may simply put links on their Internet site to the images on yours. Consequently, whenever a visitor opens site B, site B will steal traffic from your own website A, since the images shall load directly from your hosting account. This method is sometimes used for documents and other kinds of files too. If you wish to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own web hosting account’s resources, you'll be able to restrict their ability to use direct links to your files on their sites.

Hotlinking Protection in Shared Hosting

Since our Linux shared hosting feature a simple and convenient hotlink protection tool, you shall be able to protect your content from appearing on third-party Internet sites with literally no more than 2 mouse clicks, even if you do not have a lot of experience with such matters. The tool is included with the Hepsia hosting CP and when you open it, you will only have to choose the domain or subdomain that you want to protect. Optionally, you may also choose if the hotlink protection will be enabled for the default domain root folder or only for a subfolder. You shall not have to do anything else, as our system will create an .htaccess file automatically within the needed location and will include the necessary code within it. All sites with active hotlink protection will be listed inside exactly the same section, so you can easily disable this service for each of them with a click.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting

If you do not want others to use your images on their Internet sites without your approval, you could easily activate the hotlink protection feature, which is available with all semi-dedicated server package deals. Instead of creating an .htaccess file manually within the site folder and writing some code inside it, which is the conventional method to deny direct linking to files, you can use an incredibly simple tool, which we have incorporated into the Hepsia Control Panel. With it, you'll simply need to choose the website that needs to be secured and our system shall do the rest. Additionally, you can choose whether the .htaccess file needs to be generated directly in the root folder or within a subfolder, when you'd like to enable the hotlink protection feature only for some content and not for the whole site. Deactivating it is just as fast - you will simply need to mark the checkbox alongside the particular Internet site and to click on the Delete button.