What is Hotlinking & What Can I Do?

Hotlinking is when someone uses your images on his or her own site, but without saving them first. Instead, they link to the image on YOUR server. For example, their site is www.example.com, but the images are actually used as www.yourdomain.com/image.gif instead of www.example.com/image.gif.

Hotlinking can have negative consequences. First and foremost, they are stealing from you - first for stealing your images and then by using the bandwidth that you pay your hosting company for. If the copier's site has enough traffic, this can result in a hefty bandwidth bill through no fault of your own, and you will still be responsible for paying for it.

When you find someone hotlinking, you can rename images on your own site, then use the former image name to place advertisements for your own site.

To do this:

1. If you have an image named hotdeals.gif that the thief is using on her own site, rename the image as hotdeals2.gif
2. Change all your webpage files to reflect that you have changed the name of the image, being sure you haven't missed any.
3. Upload your new changes, including your new hotdeals2.gif images, and all pages that used this image.
4. Make a new image which you will save as hotdeals.gif - you can make it an advertisement for your own site, or you can substitute one picture for another less flattering picture.
5. Upload the new hotdeals.gif file to your server.
6. If done correctly, this would result in your ads showing up on THEIR site, until that person happens to notice you changed the image.

If you would like to prevent everyone from using your images on other sites, please read our article How to Prevent Hotlinking.

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