Hotlinking is a widely accepted Internet phrase for linking to another website’s images. Quite simply, if you develop a site, some other person may want to use the images that you have and rather than downloading them from your website and then uploading them to their website, they can simply put links directly to your site. This way, whenever a visitor opens their website, the images shall be loaded from your account, consequently stealing from your own monthly traffic quota, let alone the copyright problems which may appear or that somebody may be trying to trick people into believing that they are in fact on your site. In rare occasions, documents and other kinds of files can also be linked in the same exact way. To prevent this from happening and to avoid this sort of situations, you could permit hotlink protection for your site.

Hotlinking Protection in Web Hosting

There is a method for preventing the hotlinking of your images through an .htaccess file in the website’s root directory, but if you aren't very tech-savvy, we furthermore offer a very easy-to-work-with tool that will allow you to activate the protection with several mouse clicks and without inputting any code. The tool could be accessed via the Hepsia CP, offered with all our Linux web hosting plans and the only 2 things that you'll have to pick are a domain/subdomain from a drop-down menu and if the protection must be activated for the main Internet site folder or for some subfolder. Our system will do the rest, so you shall not need to do anything else manually on your end. If you want to deactivate the hotlink protection option eventually, you'll simply have to go back to the same section, to mark the checkbox next to it and to press the Delete button.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers

We offer an uncomplicated solution to shield your whole content and even if you aren't really tech-savvy, you are able to take advantage of it with a couple of clicks. The usual way to enable server-side hotlink security is to generate an .htaccess file and to include a number of directives within it. With the tool that you will find inside the Hepsia Control Panel, supplied with all of the semi-dedicated server accounts, you will simply have to choose the site which you intend to secure and our system shall create the .htaccess file for you, adding all of the needed content inside it. You may also use this feature for only one folder instead of the entire website - you just need to specify where the .htaccess file needs to be set up. If you no longer want the hotlink protection to be active, you can deactivate it with a single click through the exact same section of your CP.