Hotlink Protect Your Images
In my last post I wrote about how you can password protect your stats files in your Cpanel. Another often overlooked part is the hotlinking problem many face without knowing.
What is hotlinking?
Hotlinking also called bandwidth theft is using your images/video and link to it from your own website. Since this person doesn’t host this image on their server, they effectively steal your server juice. Just imagine that a stranger plugs his computer into your own electrical sockets without you knowing it? You still pay the bill mind you, but this person is cheekily stealing your electricity.
The same applies to bandwidth stealing or hotlinking. Some webmasters actually use funny images to tell others that their image was hotlinked to and display some “in your face” image instead.
Methods such as switcheroo bring this message across strongly.
To switch on your hotlink protection via Cpanel find the little icon that looks like this:
After clicking on the icon you’ll have a couple of options. If you are hosting="http://gobala.linktrackr.com/sharedhost-bs:keywords">hosting several sites and want to use images between each one (share) you’ll need to list them in the box provided titled “URLs to Allow Access”.
Below this you see a little box that lists all the extensions to protect. Common ones are:
jpg,jpeg,gif,png,bmp,pdf and video files
You can also allow viewers to view images in the browser by ticking the next box below. Alternatively just leave this unchecked.
Once you are happy with your choices, click on Activate. This is a quick and easy method to say goodbye once and for all to common bandwidth thief’s.
Related posts:
- Password Protect Your Stats Files
- How To Insert Images In Wordpress
- Wrapping Images in Wordpress
- WordPress Lightbox Plugin for Your Images
- Plugin: Render Music Notation as Images
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I like this post as i have been thinking about it lately, 2 questions about this really. Could i not just save all my images for all my sites in a root directory /images/ folder and password protect that using cPanel. That would stop the hotlinking – i haven’t tried it so it would probably stop the images working as well.
I absolutely love the HTML trick – please tell me how to do that – go on you know you want to.
Iain
@Ian: It looks like I’m having trouble posting you a reply. Let me try again. If you try to password protect images on your server than nobody will be able to see them, only those who have a “key”.
As for the HTML, that is done in a notepad file (part of your Windows accessories) and saved as HTML. The link goes live by using HTML tags.
If you have troubles, email me pls on info [at] thewritersmanifesto.com I’ll be happy to explain better as I can’t post HTML code in comments.
Hi Monika,
Tks for the useful piece of advice.
I have followed and applied it.
There’s one thing I dont understand about the creation of the HTML file. What purpose does it serve?
Am I right to say that it is to notify the world that the thief has stolen the image or something?
I would love to know how to get it done.
I have just created the HTML file using NVU – a free software for creating html pages.
After which you can ftp to your server.
Have the URL of the page on the Cpanel hotlink protection page under URL to direct.
Bingo
Tks Monik once again
@ Ai Ling ONG: you are spot on. That’s all it is, stating to the world that your content has been stolen. This part isn’t necessary but if certainly feels good.
Hi
Wasjust serfing on net and found this site…want to say thanks. Great site and content!