How to handle hotlinkers?

How to handle hotlinkers?

Posted by: Anonymous
Posted on: 2006-05-22 09:38:00

Hey, I just noticed that Dreamhost does not have any functions in its control panel tackling hotlinkers, how can we block hotlinkers and make it redirect to our site when someone hotlinks? I know there is an .htaccess way but I do not know how to do it through dreamhost panel..

Re: How to handle hotlinkers?

Posted by: norm1037
Posted on: 2006-05-22 09:50:00

There is a sort of hotlinking system under Goodies/htaccess|webdav.
Click your domain then configure a directory and follow the options at the bottom of the form.


--
Norm

Opinions are my own views and are not the views of DreamHost.
Any advice offered by me should be acted upon only at your own risk.

Re: How to handle hotlinkers?

Posted by: pangea33
Posted on: 2006-05-22 19:55:00

There are a lot of good tips for stopping hotlinking with .htaccess files with a quick google search. It wasn't terribly difficult once I started looking for resources. For me it wasn't such a horrible thing though. Initially I was tempted to block hotlinking, but changed my mind. I simply started putting my domain on the images, and let people link all they want. I realized that my site was getting advertising that I couldn't afford to pay for, and Dreamhost gives what amounts to unlimited bandwidth in my case. The other deciding factor was that hotlinking uses basically no server resources, so it was easy to make the decision in my situation.

BC Tech
Team Shocker

Re: How to handle hotlinkers?

Posted by: Mojo
Posted on: 2006-05-23 08:56:00

In reply to:

I simply started putting my domain on the images, and let people link all they want.


How effective have you found this? Do your referral logs show many visitors coming to your site from sites that have hotlinked your images?

I am tempted to do this, but I am reluctant to provide 'my' bandwidth to others without some kind of return.

Re: How to handle hotlinkers?

Posted by: Mojo
Posted on: 2006-05-24 06:38:00

In reply to:

Do your referral logs show many visitors coming to your site from sites that have hotlinked your images?


Thinking about this a little more I realise that referral logs aren't going to show where this traffic originates from. blush


Re: How to handle hotlinkers?

Posted by: TimS
Posted on: 2006-06-13 05:34:00


Does anyone know of a way to dynamically redirect images that are hotlinked? I read the DreamHost wiki and found a way to redirect all hotlinked image to a single, static image. However, what I'd like to do is redirect anyone who links to the full-resolution image to display the smaller thumbnail view.

Any suggestions? Is this possible?

http://DigitalDisplacement.com

Re: How to handle hotlinkers?

Posted by: scjessey
Posted on: 2006-06-13 09:48:00

In reply to:

Does anyone know of a way to dynamically redirect images that are hotlinked? I read the DreamHost wiki and found a way to redirect all hotlinked image to a single, static image. However, what I'd like to do is redirect anyone who links to the full-resolution image to display the smaller thumbnail view.

Any suggestions? Is this possible?


It is certainly possible. I just needs a bit more fancy footwork with the .htaccess file. I'm not up to writing the rules myself, I'm afraid, because I don't have much regex experience.

Re: How to handle hotlinkers?

Posted by: ladysaiyajin
Posted on: 2006-06-20 17:31:00

I find this to be a very useful site for such a thing:

http://www.htmlbasix.com/disablehotlinking.shtml

Tags: dreamhostcontrol panelhtaccessredirecthey