Just as they use shared 2.0 platforms to simplify their lives and quickly create hundreds of sites, hotlinking authors will use whatever images they can get their hands on and duplicate the maneuver for each of the sites they create.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if thousands of sites at a time are using an image from another site, the robots that map the web, like Google’s Googlebot, will pass over them to identify them\u2026 and each time they do, they’ll use up the bandwidth of the hotlinked site’s server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hotlinking draws on the resources of the stolen site, and can increase hosting costs for large volumes. If the server isn’t sized for it, it can slow down loading times. In extreme cases, it can even create a traffic jam on the server, generating server errors (error 500)<\/strong> on pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An isolated case of hotlinking is not a problem, but a high and repeated level of hotlinking will degrade the site’s rating <\/strong>and cause its position to drop, simply because it will perform less well, or because the Google robot will no longer find the pages in question.<\/p>\n\n\n Another problem posed by hotlinking is its “hijacked” use to set up redirects to malicious sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The devfall.blogspot.com blog had been hotlinking\u2026 If you try to visit it, you’re automatically redirected to a third-party site where you’re invited to click on a captcha (see below). In reality, this is a fake captcha, and clicking on it will open your computer to malware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sectors most affected by hotlinking are those that generate a lot of images: decoration, cars, fashion\u2026 A furniture site, for example, will have its images stripped very easily. But even niche markets can be hotlinked.<\/p>\n\n\n Two methods are generally used to detect hotlinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can regularly monitor your server logs<\/strong>. In the event of hotlinking, you’ll notice a sudden increase in the traffic generated by crawlers on your images. This method requires regular observation and a good understanding of your traffic patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can use backlink analysis tools<\/strong> to spot suspicious links. These tools make it easy to spot any abnormal growth in the number of links pointing to your images. These undesirable links often come from sites with little authority, such as blogspots or foreign sites\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n When a domain name seems suspicious, it’s important to examine the link profile of each domain to confirm your suspicions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hotlinking results in a significant increase in referring domains.<\/strong> This increase is a first indication, but it’s necessary to check each link to make sure it’s really hotlinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hotlinking may occur sporadically, but is often carried out on a large scale. The better known a site is, the more exposed it is to the risk of hotlinking.<\/p>\n\n\n To protect your images from hotlinking, you can block access to your images<\/strong> from external domains while allowing search engine spiders to pass through by modifying your site’s .htaccess file. This modification will prevent other sites from using your images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This rule blocks access to image files (.jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif) from external domains, with the exception of the “my-site.com” domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another technique is to insert watermarks into images<\/strong>. Watermarks are visual marks that appear on the image to indicate that it is protected by copyright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some hosting services offer built-in protection against hotlinking<\/strong>. These protections can include features such as limiting bandwidth for external requests, disabling image access for certain referring domains, or redirecting external requests to a default image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regular monitoring of your traffic and backlinks is a good way of preventing hotlinking. By identifying undesirable links early on, you can take the necessary steps to block them before they multiply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hotlinking is the practice of “swiping” an image from one website and embedding it in another, using the URL of the original resource. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":32372,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[407],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.seo.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Hotlinking_en-1024x576.png\")
How to detect hotlinking<\/h2>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.seo.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Hotlinking_en._blogpng-1024x576.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\nHow to prevent hotlinking?<\/h2>\n\n\n
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