Knowledge Base

HOME: Hosting Account Issues - Misc

Misc issues related to hosting accounts that are not covered by the standard categories.

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1. Protecting images, direct linkers, and bandwidth theft

What is Direct Linking?

Direct linking is an act in which a person includes an image in their website, not by linking to an image file on their own site, but instead by directly linking to an image on another person's website. If the direct linker does it without the other person's permission, it's also called "bandwidth theft" since the direct linker is using the resources that someone else is paying for. It's inconsiderate, rude and may be considered a legal offense.

How can I find out if someone is direct linking to my files?

Check the Stats and raw server log files on your site. You should find that the "Referer" for hits to your image files is your own web pages. If you find the Referer for an image file is a page on someone elses site, then check that site to see if they are direct linking to your files.

What can I do about direct linkers?

First, contact the website owner and ask them to stop. They may not be aware that direct linking is bandwidth theft and you may find them grateful for the information.

If they refuse to stop, you may choose to protect the images on your site from all direct linkers. This can be done by updating all of the IMG tags in the HTML code in all of your web pages so that the IMG tags point to a small script that checks that the Referer is a local one before displaying the image. There are many such scripts to be found on the Internet that can be used with your hosting account at MetaPros. Here are some Internet references that may help...
http://www.custom-cgi.com/free/bandwidth_protector/
http://www.hotscripts.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?query=%22bandwidth+theft%22&catid=all
http://www.google.com/search?q=bandwidth+theft+script

You may also wish to ban offending website from ever accessing anything on your website. This can be done by adding or modifying a file named .htaccess in the [mydomain]-www directory on your site. Here are the steps that you can follow...

IMPORTANT NOTE: If Frontpage Extensions are installed at your site, DO NOT do this procedure. It will most likely break your website.

- Login to your Account Manager
- Click on "File Manager"
- Click on the directory [mydomain]-www NOTE: your domain name will be shown for [mydomain]
- Next to the "Create/Edit File" button, type ".htaccess" (without the quotes, and WITH the starting period). Click the "Create/Edit File" button.
- Add the following lines to the file. If the file already exists, the file contents will be shown. Just add the lines at the top. Substitute the IP address of the offending website where 0.0.0.0 is shown. Multiple "deny from" lines are permitted if needed.

<Limit GET>
order allow,deny
deny from 0.0.0.0
allow from all
</Limit>

- Click on "Save file". Done.


Updated: February 3, 2004

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