Enabling Hotlink Protection

This demo will show you how to enable Hotlink Protection as well as adding URLs to allow hotlinking. Bandwidth theft or "hotlinking" is direct linking to a web site's files (images, video, etc.).

An example would be using an image tag to display a JPEG image you found on someone else's web page so it will appear on your own site, eBay auction listing, weblog, forum message post, etc. This not only causes the owner to pay for the bandwidth of the hotlinked file, but often is intellectual property theft. By following the steps below, you can prevent others from linking to your website's resources and consuming your bandwidth.

[1] Click on the "Hotlink Protection" icon under the "Security" section of your cPanel

[2] Click the "Enable" button

[3] Click the "Go Back" link at the bottom of the page

[4] If you would like to allow any URLs to hotlink to your files, enter the URL(s) into the "URLs to allow access" field

[5] If you would like to redirect hotlinkers to a certain URL, enter the URL into the "Redirect request to this URL" field

[6] Click the "Submit" button