Introduction
Hotlinking is where images from another website are displayed on another site through links. This functionality enables easy access to the image and its data rather than having to do web copying. However, if there are so many hotlinks, you may have an issue with excessive bandwidth usage.
This article shows you how to protect sites from hotlinking (Windows) using Plesk.
How to Protect Sites from Hotlinking (Windows) using Plesk
Turn on Hotlink Protection
Log into Plesk and then you click the Websites & Domains. Click Hotlink Protection.
A new screen appears and under Tools, you click Switch On and the icon changes from Green to Red.
Click Switch On
After you have clicked Switch On.
Under the Protected files extensions, you can specify the files you wish to protect from hotlinking. The files can be, .jpeg, .bmp, .jpg, etc. While listing, it is important to separate the files using white spaces.
However, under the Addresses of friendly websites, you can type in the links of the friendly sites which you can link your files then click Add.
Click Add, to move the weblink to the list box below and you can add another website.
Once you have finished entering the protected files extensions and allowing the friendly sites which can hotlink from your site you click OK.
You will receive an operation success message on the homepage.
This means that the extensions you have indicated are protected from hotlinking and only the allowed websites can link to your site.
Conclusion
This article has shown you how to use Plesk to turn on the Hotlinking Protection and specify the extensions you want to protect. You can allow the friendly websites to hotlink. Hotlinking may cause too much usage of the bandwidth of the website owner. Thus, it is important to protect your sites from hotlinks.
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