Hotlinking Protection
What is hotlink protection and exactly how does it function? When do you really need it?
Hotlinking is an expression which describes the inclusion of images on a particular website by using direct links. In case you have site A, for instance, and an individual creates site B and wishes to add a number of images from your website, they are able to either save the images and then include them on their site or they can simply put links on their website to the images on yours. Thus, whenever a visitor opens website B, site B will steal traffic from your own website A, as the images shall load directly from your website hosting account. This process is sometimes used for documents and other sorts of files too. If you wish to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own hosting account’s resources, you can limit their capability to use direct links to your files on their sites.
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Hotlinking Protection in Shared Website Hosting
You can easily shield your content if you set up an .htaccess file within the website’s root folder, but in case that you don't have previous experience, you could use our hotlink protection tool. The latter is provided with all
shared website hosting plans which we offer and can be accessed using the in-house built Hepsia Control Panel. The protection could be turned on in 2 easy steps - choose the domain or subdomain for the website in question, then choose if our system should set up the .htaccess file inside the primary folder or in a subfolder and you shall be good to go. You do not need any computer programming skills or any experience with such matters, because there shall be nothing else to do. If you'd like to remove the protection at some time, you could see all the Internet sites which are protected within the same section of the Control Panel with a Delete button beside each of them.
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Hotlinking Protection in Semi-dedicated Servers
If you don't want other individuals to use your images on their websites without your approval, you can easily switch on the hotlink protection feature, which is provided with all
semi-dedicated server packages. As opposed to setting up an .htaccess file manually within the site folder and writing some code within it, which is the standard method to deny direct linking to files, you may use a very simple tool, that we have incorporated into the Hepsia Control Panel. Using it, you'll simply have to choose the website that should be protected and our system shall do the rest. Furthermore, you can choose if the .htaccess file will be set up straight in the root folder or within a subfolder, when you would like to activate the hotlink security function only for some content and not for the entire website. Deactivating it is just as effortless - you'll simply need to mark the checkbox next to the particular Internet site and to click on the Delete button.