SEO by Chris Estes

Last week I posted about .htaccess and put a brief snippet about blocking hotlinks. Hotlinks are direct links to a web site’s files (images, video, etc.). Find out more about hotlinking, here. Hotlinking can cause bandwidth overages if you are the victim of hotlinking.

To stop hotlinking

In your .Htaccess file enter the:

RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$ RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.domain.com/.*$ [NC] RewriteRule .*.(gif|GIF|jpg|JPG|png|PNG|doc|DOC|pdf|PDF|txt|TXT|pl|PL|ico|ICO|css|CSS|js|JS)$ – [F]

By modifying the "RewriteCond" you can allow hotlinking from certain domains. You want to make sure you allow linking from your domain. The method above allows links from only the domain listed. "www.domain.com" should be changed to the url you would link for the files to appear. I block access to all files in my site that I do not want linked in other domains.

Reasons to be hotlinked

There is a certain school of thought that believes that some SEO "link Juice" will be passed from using links to these files. I have not found this to be true. Also, blocking images in this way is supposed to block files from appearing in search indexes and databases. Just the inverse of this it can help you get exposure via Image search or files if they are indexed. If you are an artist or graphic designer you may want your images to appear in search. That decision has to be made by you. I have seen some pretty nifty javascript and php code that will allow the files to be indexed in google/yahoo/live/ask image results and when clicked on it directs you to the page where usage requirements are shared and the images held for purchase.

Hosting Hotlinked Images

If you plan to host hotlinked images you need to be prepared for the extra bandwidth usage. Don’t forget to check with your host to make sure you have a proper plan for your planned usage. I have found 1and1.com to have adequate hosting plans that are inexpensive and very reliable. But if you post a video I recommend using a streaming video service such as YouTube or Google Video. A couple downloads and you have already depleted your bandwidth usage. In addition to using a lot of bandwidth it can also use a lot of system resources if the video will be streaming.

Bonus Information and video

Matt Cutts, a Star Google employee, talks about proper usage of image ALT attributes. If you are going to allow hotlinking it is best that you meet standards for inclusion. Whether you allow hotlinking or not it is a great idea to use the alt attribute as it makes it more accessible for screen readers and is simply an overall usability standard.

I do not want to share my bandwidth without consent. If someone contacted me with a request to share images it wouldn’t be a problem. What do you think hotlinking? To let others hotlink or to block hotlinking?

If you have been following the development of SEO by Chris you have noticed the Google Ads all around. So are you annoyed by them? I am too, but the truth about them is that hopefully they will offset the hosting fees, which I might add are only $3.99 a month. I bought the cheapest hosting package I could find. I landed at www.1and1.com for a low monthly hosting rate and included a couple perks to go along with it.

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