Hotlinking is an expression that identifies the inclusion of images on a given Internet site by using direct links. If you have site A, for example, and someone creates website B and wants to add a number of images from your Internet site, they are able to either save the images and then include them on their Internet site or they could simply place links on their website to the images on yours. Subsequently, when a visitor opens Internet site B, site B will steal traffic from your own website A, since the images will load straight from your web hosting account. This technique is usually used for documents and other types of files as well. If you want to prevent third parties from stealing your content and from using your own hosting account’s resources, you could limit their ability to use direct links to your files on their Internet sites.
