Hotlinking – Is it really that big of a deal?

Well, if having your bandwidth stolen right out from under you without your permission can be considered a “big deal”, then yes, yes it is.

Let’s say you have a 100K JPEG that someone links to and places the image on their site, presenting the image as their own. However, the image is still calling from your server. Now, let’s say that particular JPEG sees 1,000 hits a day on the page, that’s 100MB of data that’s being transferred from your site without your knowledge, or permission, all without having the benefit of having any actual visitors coming to your site. I’d say this is a fairly big deal. Read the rest of this entry »

Leech Bandits on the Loose!

Leech Bandits on the Loose!
And What You Can Do to Stop Them

What is Leeching?

Leeching. Inline linking. Hotlinking. Bandwidth theft. Sometimes it is even called direct linking or confused with deep linking. Whatever the term, if a third party site is requesting your files and presenting them on their Web site, you are paying for the bandwidth while they use your content as their own. Read the rest of this entry »

Control Your Content the Right Way

We here at Port80 think that site owners should have some control over their content access, particularly when people fetch it in ways that steal bandwidth or co-opt brand. However, it is pretty easy to go overboard with content protection. Considering that you can easily protect an image using JavaScript to provide an anti-right click script. Read the rest of this entry »