cPanel Basics: How To Prevent Other Websites From Linking Directly To Your Files

July 2nd, 2008 · 3 Comments

cPanel Tutorial - HotLinking Prevention When another website links directly to your files, it is called HotLinking. And when a website is hotlinking your files, it uses your bandwidth and storage space. Even worse, chances are the visitor downloading the file will never know about your website.

The good news is that you can prevent this using cPanel.

This tutorial assumes that you’re already logged in cPanel. Your cPanel skin and layout may differ from the HostPapa screenshots shown here.

From the Security section, click on the HotLink Protection icon.
On the next screen, click the Enable button to enable hotlink protection. Click on the Go Back link once hotlink protection is enabled.
Enter the URLs which will be allowed to link directly to your files:
Specify which file extensions to block direct access to:
If you have created some sort of “HotLinking Forbidden” web page, enter its URL:
When you’re done, hit the Submit button.

And voilà! Your website is now protected from abusers who want to suck your bandwidth and resources without giving you credit for your work by sending visitors to your website.

External Links

HostPapa
HostPapa.ca (Canada)
HostPapa.co.uk (United Kingdom)
cPanel Hosting

3 responses so far ↓

1. Response by : Charbax on Jul 3, 2008 at 2:42 pm

Does this work for videos such as avi,divx,mp4,mov,flv in terms of blocking leeching of video files and limiting access to embedded videos from webpages on the specific domains or perhaps also a download link as long as that download link was loaded on a webpage on a specific domain?

2. Response by : Stephane Brault on Jul 3, 2008 at 2:48 pm

It will work as long as you add these file extensions (see step 4).

3. Response by : vDeck Tutorial: How To Prevent Other Websites From Linking To Linking Directly To Your Files on Sep 18, 2008 at 12:03 am

[...] 18th, 2008 · No Comments A couple of months ago I’ve made a post on How To Prevent HotLinking with cPanel. If you don’t know what hotlinking is, hotlinking is when another website links directly to [...]