If you have been following my blog, I made a post about how to prevent someone from hot-linking your blog/site images manually by using a file called [dot]htaccess. Although the solution is good, it may scare people who are not so tech-savvy and prefer not to meddle around with codes.
Well if you are under a hosting plan and your hosting provider uses cPanel (your site control panel), you may be lucky as there is a “Hotlink Protection” option located on it! Here’s how.
If you don’t know what hot-linking means, you may want to check my other post first as an introduction (I don’t want to repeat myself by writing about it again here)
To enable it from your hosting cPanel:
- Login to your site’s control panel
- On the main cPanel, locate the “Hotlink Protection” icon (NOTE: My Cpanel version is version 11. If you don’t see this icon/link, it’s possible that your hosting may use an older version or doesn’t support this feature).
- On the Hotlink Protection screen, simply add the sites that you trust, which allows them to hotlink your images.
- The screen should be self-explanatory, so I’ll leave you to discover yourselves what you can change in there
Voila! That’s as easy as 1-2-3, compared to editing your own htaccess file and upload it to the right folder and stuff.
Go and shoo the bandwith thieves away now.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for this hotlinking tips Michael, it will certainly come in handy.
Maries last blog post..Our First Competition: It starts with an idea
Hey! This is a really interesting tip! I never knew this option existed. Off to see my cpanel to see if I can do this. Thanks!
Kathys last blog post..Free Business Cards
Hey, thanks a lot for the tip. I have just activated it for my site.
You’re welcome guys! I discovered this yesterday, even though I’ve looked at that control panel for years @_@
I wonder whether you can use it to protect .exe, .zip files.. to prevent someone leeching from your server (put a straight download link to your file on their own site)
Thanks for the tip.
Really useful but actually it’s useless for professional. A simple section of asp/php code will make hotlink protection means nothing. The only way to protecting should depends on picture copyright protection,
Life on Marss last blog post..Is Victoria’s Secret A Thief?
And what about Pinging Back posts -Will it create any problem if you activate Hot Link Protections?
True, but I guess if it can filter out some, why not?
Pinging back posts should be fine, as long as they don’t hot-link your images on their posts, Shanker
Just make sure you add a filter to known sites such as Digg, etc