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Protecting Your Bandwidth in cPanel With Hotlink Protection

When you have completely built your website for your online business, you would probably feel that you have got the job done. Think again, because having the website done is just half the job done. There is still the part of maintaining your website. So, after you have spent so much time in building your website, isn't it awful to have people stealing bandwidth from you? Therefore, measurements must be taken to prevent this from happening. One of the ways to do so is by using the HotLink protection which comes with the cPanel control panel

Your website's bandwidth can be stolen by HotLinking an image from your site. So, with the HotLink protection, you can prevent it by replacing the desired image with another image that you can choose. For an example, you can direct visitors to your site by putting a description that says 'this image belongs to another website', please go to 'your website's URL' to see the original image. This way, the visitor will be brought to you website.

On the other hand, if you don't want to use the Hotlink protection, you could try asking the webmaster to see if they will cooperate with you or not. Try to email them asking politely. If they refuse, you can always is an image that has no connection and replace it for the image that they are HotLinking from your site. This way, visitors are less likely to return to their website again.

Using the Hotlink protection can be done with the icon that is displayed in your cPanel interface. Usually the settings are set to default. So, the first thing to do is to upload the image that you would like to replace. It needs to be uploaded onto a different image hosting service because it will not be displayed from your server. You can do this easily with any free image hosting service that you can find in the internet. Once activated the Hotlink protection will prevent any of the image from your server from being displayed.

After activating, you need to set the destination where the HotLinking will be directed to. This can be a partner site is any other domain. So, you just need to enter the domain URL for the replacement image that you have uploaded previously. Then, check the 'Allow Direct Request' checkbox and activate it. Once his is done, you will see a notification saying that your Hotlinking protection is active.

Take these few steps and you will be able to prevent your bandwidth from being stolen. It does need a little effort but it will be worthwhile.

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Article by Justin Knights, freelance writer.

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