Is there a way to find WHO is hotlinking your images?

[elias75]

Getting some strange stats lately and it looks like another site is hotlinking on some of my images.... is there a way to find out which site is this?
also apart from the obvious disadvantages (stealing your resources) would you say that there are any advantages at all?
does a hotlink count the same as a backlink?

 

[qbert220]

The referer [sic] header will tell you which web page is linking to your image. Download a raw log file, look for hits on your image, and you should see the URL which links to your page in the referer field.

 

[elias75]

thanks for the reply..... I might be wrong after all.... I get many hits on one specific image but the referer at my Statcounter stats looks like this: http://images.google.es/imgres?imgu...bnid=aQzZuPu0dm88bM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=116&prev=/

could it be that it is not hotlinking but search traffic cause my image ranks #2 in Google image search for the search "Jesus Christ Superstar"??

 

[qbert220]

could it be that it is not hotlinking but search traffic cause my image ranks #2 in Google image search for the search "Jesus Christ Superstar"??

Yes.

 

[nayes84]

you can disable hot linking anyway

 

[elias75]

you can disable hot linking anyway

how you do this?

also would you say that there are any advantages when others hotlink your images?

 

[Peter]

something like the following will work in your htaccess file:-

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yourdomain.com(/)?.*$     [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|bmp)$ - [F,NC]

If you want to generate for other extensions you can use sites such as :-

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

 

[qbert220]

Peter's response will also block people visiting your site who click on a result in google images. This may or may not be what you want. You could add another RewriteCond to allow google referrers:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?google\..*$ [NC]

 

[nayes84]

how you do this?]

you can prevent hotlinking by using .htaccess

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?allowedhost\.com/ [NC
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteRule \.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ images/nohotlink.jpg [L]

where allowedhost.com is a host you need to allow them to hotlink your images.
nohotlink.jpg is an image to show instead of the hot linked image. like image shows hotlinking is not allowed or shows your website banner

for more details on preventing hot linking check that tutorial
http://www.mymommybiz.com/seo/preventhotlinking.html

also would you say that there are any advantages when others hotlink your images?

yes sometimes there is advantage to allow some hosts to hot link you.
like allowing hotlinking of your banner so other hosts can advertise you
or to allow google images to hotlink you. this will send you good traffic

 

[namemarket]

Hotlinking is easy to spot if you analyze your referrer log stats.

When I see someone doing that a simple solution is to simply change the img name. It may take a very long time before they realize the img no longer resolves.

 

[nayes84]

Hotlinking is easy to spot if you analyze your referrer log stats.

When I see someone doing that a simple solution is to simply change the img name. It may take a very long time before they realize the img no longer resolves.

that is very troublesome if you have many images in your site. also this way you are going to drop out your image from good ranking in google. it is better to prevent hotlinking by using .htaccess and just allow hotlinking to google and trusted websites

 

[MH-Andy]

Use something like Webalizer that lists all of the referring sites.

 

[elias75]

I think for the time I will let it be.... since bandwidth is not an issue cause I have 'unlimited' from my host.

I got one picture that is called "Jesus Christ Superstar" which is the cover of the soundtrack of the infamous 1970's musical.

The image search in google for "Jesus Christ Superstar" gets my image #2 on the first page! Much of my search traffic lately comes from that image in search results... but I also noticed that most people who land on the image also browse other parts of the website too.... so if it is hotlinked then it is not that bad after all....

thanks everyone for their info & advice! much appreciated!

 

[monaco]

I had a hotlinking problem on one of my old sites...I wrote a redirector script programmed with some of the filthiest images on the web (use your imagination) and redirected hotlinkers to it. Even got some hatemail from a girl who got her myspace cancelled for using disgusting porn as her page background.

Hotlinking to anything but a designated permanent link is a very bad web design practice anyway 99 percent of the time.

What I do for google on a few of my sites is, I allow google to hotlink so the images show up in image results; but when the image is clicked, it redirects back to the page the image is on, ads and all.

 

[action012]

Over thinking.

If you have Cpanel why not just just use the HotLink Protection under the under security section of Cpanel at-least all the host I've used have this function. :blink:

Steve