Preventing Hotlinking: A Guide to Hotlink Protection in cPanel

Hotlink protection prevents other websites from directly loading data from your website, preventing bandwidth consumption. Enabling hotlink protection prevents images from being loaded from your website when visitors visit another site, ensuring that no other website can link directly to any files on your site.

a) How to configure Hotlink Protection in cPanel

1. Log into cPanel and navigate to the Security section to select Hotlink Protection tool or search for the Hotlink Protection tool in the search bar.

2. Then, navigate to Configure Hotlink Protection on the Hotlink Protection Interface and it will display the Hotlink Protection Configure fields. Below is the description of the Configure Hotlink Protection fields:

• URLs to allow access: Enter here the URLs that you want to grant direct access to your website’s files.
• Block direct access for the following extensions (comma–separated): Enter file extensions like MP4, JPG, and PNG in this field to prevent other websites from linking to them.
• Allow Direct Requests: The checkbox allows users to directly access your file by providing the full URL, such as a PDF file URL, which can be viewed in the browser. It is recommended to check it.
• Redirect the request to the following URL: If a website links to a file directly from your site, it will be redirected to the URL provided in this field.

3. Finally, click the Submit button to update the changes.

b) How to enable or disable Hotlink Protection in cPanel

1. Log into cPanel and navigate to the Security section to select Hotlink Protection tool or search for the Hotlink Protection tool in the search bar.

2. Then, click the Enable button on the Hotlink Protection interface to enable or disable Hotlink Protection.