Hotlinking is an expression which represents the addition of images on a particular website by using direct links. When you have site A, for instance, and an individual creates site B and wishes to include a few images from your site, they could either save the images and then include them on their website or they can simply put links on their website to the images on yours. Thus, every time a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own site A, since the images shall load from your web hosting account. This process is oftentimes used for documents and other kinds of files as well. If you want to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own hosting account’s resources, you are able to restrict their ability to use direct links to your files on their sites.

Hotlinking Protection in Shared Web Hosting

You can easily protect your content if you set up an .htaccess file inside the website’s root folder, but in case you do not have previous experience, you need to use our hotlink protection tool. The latter is provided with all shared web hosting plans that we offer and can be accessed using the in-house built Hepsia Control Panel. The protection can be activated in 2 easy steps - pick the domain or subdomain for the website in question, then choose if our system should set up the .htaccess file inside the main folder or in a subfolder and you'll be ready. You do not need any coding skills or any experience with this type of matters, since there will be nothing else to do. If you want to remove the protection at some point, you can see all of the sites which are protected in the exact same section of the CP with a Delete button alongside each one of them.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting

We provide you with an uncomplicated solution to shield your content and even if you aren't quite tech-savvy, you can take full advantage of it with a couple of mouse clicks. The common approach to activate server-side hotlink protection is to create an .htaccess file and to add a few directives in it. With the tool that you will find inside the Hepsia CP, included with all semi-dedicated server accounts, you will only need to choose the Internet site that you intend to protect and our system will set up the .htaccess file for you, including all the needed content within it. You could also use this option for just one folder as opposed to the entire site - you just have to specify where the .htaccess file needs to be set up. If you no longer require the hotlink security to be enabled, you'll be able to deactivate it with a single click through the exact same section of your Control Panel.