Should I Stop Hotlinking on My Site?

Betboss · Jan 23, 2023

Sorry to bother you all, I'm doing a backlink audit on my site via semrush and I noticed that the links marked as toxic were all hotlinking to images on my site.

I'm currently disavowing these links, but I'm wondering if I should disable hotlinking completely.

Will this action affect my seo?

These numerous links mostly do follow haven't in any way improved visibility to the site, rather its going down.

Thanks for your responses.

Nahidhassan2981 · Jan 23, 2023

It is a bad practice that negatively impacts web administrators. Hotlinking another website's images can take up a significant amount of bandwidth on its server and infringe on its owners' copyright.

Steptoe · Jan 23, 2023

I take it these are <img> links rather than <a> links? No need to disavow, and they are unlikely to effect any SEO you've done.

It's easy enough to set up hotlinking protection though. I think cPanel has a module for it, or you can do it via .htaccess eg:

Code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://(www\.)yourdomain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|png|webp)$ https://www.yourdomain.com/advert.png [R,L]

This will serve an alternate image 'advert.png' to any pages hotlinking your images. You could put something like 'image from yourdomain.com' on the image to try and solicit some traffic.

Panther28 · Jan 23, 2023

Steptoe said:
You could put something like 'image from yourdomain.com' on the image to try and solicit some traffic.

I like your naughty webmaster thinking! Does it become a clickable link?

Steptoe · Jan 23, 2023

Panther28 said:
I like your naughty webmaster thinking! Does it become a clickable link?

Imagine the shenanigans you could get up to if that was possible!

Betboss · Jan 23, 2023

Steptoe said:
I take it these are <img> links rather than <a> links? No need to disavow, and they are unlikely to effect any SEO you've done.

It's easy enough to set up hotlinking protection though. I think cPanel has a module for it, or you can do it via .htaccess eg:

Code:

RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$ RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://(www\.)yourdomain.com/.*$ [NC] RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|png|webp)$ https://www.yourdomain.com/advert.png [R,L]

This will serve an alternate image 'advert.png' to any pages hotlinking your images. You could put something like 'image from yourdomain.com' on the image to try and solicit some traffic.

This links to wp-content/uploads/.....

Do you think its wise to disavow these links considering that semrush has marked them as toxic.

Also, is it okay to block these sites from linking to images on my site. Most are spam sites and they constitute 90% of all backlink to my site.

Thanks for your response

Steptoe · Jan 23, 2023

I don't bother with disavowing anything. I've never seen anything that can be demonstrated as being a 'toxic' backlink. If I had, I'd be all over it.

Totally block the hotlinkers - they're just syphoning off your bandwidth and offering nothing in return.

Betboss · Jan 23, 2023

Steptoe said:
I don't bother with disavowing anything. I've never seen anything that can be demonstrated as being a 'toxic' backlink. If I had, I'd be all over it.

Totally block the hotlinkers - they're just syphoning off your bandwidth and offering nothing in return.

Alright thank you. Can I use the code you provided earlier block hotlinking without serving any img advert like you suggested?

Steptoe · Jan 23, 2023

You would need something like this instead:

Code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://(www\.)yourdomain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|png|webp)$ - [F,NC,L]

Remember to take backups of your existing .htaccess before editing. Or there are probably Wordpress plugins to handle it too.

Betboss · Jan 23, 2023

Steptoe said:
You would need something like this instead:

Code:

RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$ RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://(www\.)yourdomain.com/.*$ [NC] RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|png|webp)$ - [F,NC,L]

Remember to take backups of your existing .htaccess before editing. Or there are probably Wordpress plugins to handle it too.

Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Should I Stop Hotlinking on My Site?

Betboss

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Nahidhassan2981

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Steptoe

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Panther28

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Steptoe

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Betboss

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