Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 19

Thread: Hotlinking

  1. #1
    BDBionic
    Guest

    Hotlinking

    Woke up this morning to see that some heavily trafficked Japanese gay message board hotlinked 18 images from a site of mine.
    I'm glad people are finding the site and what not... but the hotlinking sucked up in one morning about 25 gigs of bandwidth! Almost 500,000 hits!
    So as a quick fix I just renamed the images and uploaded in the place of a couple a little file with the domain name of the site they hotlinked from and a message to please not hotlink.
    But as a more long term fix, what all have you guys incorporated to try and cut down on hotlinking like that? Any simple techniques that don't require major site overhaul?
    The hotlinking that's taken place before this morning never bothered me as the bandwidth it used up was minimal.
    But the board from this morning wreaked havoc on my bandwidth like Godzilla through Tokyo (eh... sorry... I can just hardly get through a Japan reference without bringing up Godzilla).


  2. #2
    You do realize by 'gay' I mean a man who has sex with other men?
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    New Orleans, Louisiana.
    Posts
    21,635
    .htaccess with a redirect to a file on a free host that just has your site url on it or a gruesome pic.

    I find that usually does the trick LOL

    Regards,

    Lee


  3. #3
    BDBionic
    Guest
    this sounds like a job for...

    TUB GIRL!!!!


  4. #4
    BDBionic
    Guest
    hehehe... should I?


  5. #5
    TheLegacy
    Guest

    Wink

    you think you had it bad - last night I spent hours trying to find a new gay japanese message board then around 18 imagines that I could upload from websites just to get to talk to some guy to webcam me!!!


  6. #6
    Have an idea and make it come to life! Gary-Alan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Daytona Beach, Florida, USA
    Posts
    2,591
    Godzilla always works LOL

    Actually we ran a free host a while back... We had a LOT of japanese hotlinking going on.

    As a fast fix, I renamed the directories, added an htaccess redirect to a page with a dialer that accomodated the japanese market. Made some decent cash off of that just for catching cheaters.

    My two cents.

    Gary-Alan


  7. #7
    Jasun
    Guest
    That same fucker I just got rid of seems to have found you. I didn't know until it was WAY over the limit that he'd hotlinked about 500 of my images, and I'd lost enough bandwidth to last me about a month.

    All I did was drop an .htaccess file into each directory with image files, and it immediately stopped the problem.

    It's really easy to do this...

    copy and paste this into a text editor.

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


  8. #8
    Jasun
    Guest
    but change "metromen.com" with your domain.

    save that file as ".htaccess" and put it in each directory with image files (you don't have to worry about subdirectories)

    Hotlinker has been stopped in his tracks.

    yay.


  9. #9
    BDBionic
    Guest
    Instead of just the domain name, I can put the name of a file there right? 8)

    so that if someone hotlinks, instead of just the red x they see a teeny lil image with the domain name.

    i have no problem hosting a teeny lil image with my own domain name on the site people are hotlinking from. with nothing but graphic text of the domain name it could be like a <5k file so that i get a lil free promo from the hotlinkers, as ya guys have mentioned
    Last edited by BDBionic; 01-15-2004 at 04:09 PM.


  10. #10
    abostonboy
    Guest
    You can put that file in the root as long as other domains dont need to pull just images....


  11. #11
    BDBionic
    Guest
    when I try the .htaccess file, it prevents any of my image files from showing up within the site. it disables all images within whatever folder i put the .htaccess file in to... even within my own domain.

    any suggestions?


  12. #12
    Jasun
    Guest
    I think it actaully has to be your domain name there, not the picture name... that would probaly stop any linking of the pictures, even by you. Not entirely sure how it works, but it's saved me a lot of cash.

    However, I love the dialer idea.

    Fucking hilarious.


  13. #13
    BDBionic
    Guest
    yeah. still doesn't work.
    There's a second variable option that I can put in to bring up an image of my choosing in place of any image hotlinked. I can get that to work, so that someone on an outside URL sees that image.
    But I can't get it so that people on my own site can see the images on it. When I put the htaccess file in, not only does it disable hotlinking but it also disables all of the images within whatever folder i put it in! hehe


  14. #14
    Jasun
    Guest
    I'd call your host and ask them about it.

    My host actually has a script on their website that will generate the proper syntax for the file and tell you exactly how to do it.


  15. #15
    Xstr8guy
    Guest
    BD, do you have NIS (Norton Internet Security) on your computer?


Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •