How to Set Up Hotlink Protection
Hotlinking is when another site embeds your images directly, using your bandwidth to serve their pages. Hotlink Protection blocks this while keeping your own site working.
Step-by-step
- Open Security → Hotlink Protection in cPanel.
- Review the "URLs to allow access" list — it should include your own domain (with and without www) and ideally search engines and your CDN.
- List the file extensions to protect — typically jpg, jpeg, gif, png, bmp.
- Optionally set a redirect URL for blocked requests (e.g. a placeholder image).
- Click Enable. Other sites can no longer embed your protected files.
- Test by viewing your own pages (images should still load) and confirming hotlinked copies elsewhere break.
💡 Good to know
- Add your CDN and social-media domains to the allow list, or images may break when shared.
- Hotlink protection directly reduces wasted bandwidth.
- It writes rules to .htaccess — keep a backup as with any .htaccess change.