

Now that you’ve learned why you should stop hotlinking, you might be wondering what to do instead when you would like to use images from other websites. So, the perpetrator is not only stealing content but also stealing website resources from the original owner. Every time someone views a hotlinked image, it eats up the origin server’s bandwidth. You would be leeching off another website owner’s resources and increasing their hosting costs.People may assume that you lack originality and don’t respect other users’ rights.

Due to the bad reputation of hotlinking, adopting this practice can poorly reflect on you. Hotlinking makes you appear unoriginal and unprofessional.If the original owner decides to modify or delete the content at any time, the changes will also be shown on the perpetrator’s website.


A hotlinked image is connected to the original website.
DROPLR HOTLINKING HOW TO
How to Protect Your Site From Getting Hotlinked.For web administrators, we provide four methods to protect your website from hotlinks: using hPanel, an FTP client, a content delivery network (CDN), and WordPress plugins. This article will explain why you should avoid hotlinking and how to stop doing it. If Website B receives high traffic, a significant amount of Website A’s server resources will be used. In other words, server resources from Website A are used every time a user views the hotlinked image. But instead of saving the image on their computer and reuploading it, the owner of Website B links the image directly from Website A to instantly show it on their site.Įven though people can see the meme on Website B’s site, the origin server is still storing it. Many webmasters consider it bad practice because it can put websites at a significant disadvantage.įor example, Website B’s owner found a funny meme on Website A and decided to use it on their website. If you’re a website owner or a web user in general, you might have heard about hotlinking. When this happens, the original website owner must cover and pay for these server resources each time a web browser wants to load and view the asset. Hotlinking is the act of using another site’s bandwidth by displaying their website asset – like an image, video, or audio file – on a different website via a direct web link.
