Hotlinking is a commonly accepted Internet expression for linking to another website’s images. Basically, if you build an Internet site, another person may want to use the images you have and instead of downloading them from your site and then uploading them to their own website, they may simply put links straight to your Internet site. That way, when a visitor opens their website, the images will be loaded from your account, consequently stealing from your own monthly traffic quota, not to mention the copyright problems which may arise or that someone can be trying to deceive people into thinking that they are in fact on your Internet site. In rare situations, documents and other sorts of files can also be linked in the same exact way. To prevent this from happening and to avoid this kind of situations, you can activate hotlink protection for your site.

Hotlinking Protection in Shared Website Hosting

It won't take more than a couple of clicks to switch on the hotlink protection feature which we offer you even if this is the first website hosting account that you use, due to the fact that all of our Linux shared website hosting include a quite simple and easy-to-use tool that will enable you to prevent direct links to your content. The tool is an element of our advanced Hepsia Control Panel, so it offers the same easy-to-use point-and-click interface. As soon as you log in to your account’s back office and visit the Hotlink Protection section, you will simply have to choose the domain or subdomain you want to secure from a drop-down list. If you'd like to enable this service only for a specific site folder, you've got the option to do that. All websites with enabled hotlink protection will appear inside this section and you will be able to turn off the service by selecting the checkbox beside the given Internet site and clicking on the Delete button.

Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting

If you have a semi-dedicated server account with our company and you notice that another person has hotlinked any of your images, you can use the protection tool that we have developed and included in our in-house built Hepsia hosting CP. When you switch on this feature, a server-generated image shall appear on the third-party website as a substitute for your actual images. You'll only need to check out the Hotlink Protection section in the CP and pick the domain or subdomain that your website uses from a practical drop-down menu - it is as basic as that. When necessary, you will also have the option to switch on the function only for a particular subfolder and not for the website altogether. Deactivating the protection is as simple - return to exactly the same section, check the box next to the given site and then press the Delete button.