Hotlinking...

**Chris Gwynne** · 06-03-06, 10:36 PM

Didn't know where else to put it...

So I've just got an email from my host that I've already burned up 6GB of bandwidth on one of my websites, it's only the 4th June.. this doesn't usually happen to the end of the month.

So clearly, someone is leeching my bandwidth. How do I go about finding who it is? I've had a look through cpanel and the stats and I don't see anything out of the normal, surely they'd have a high referral request correct? I've checked those sites, but can't find any of my images on there.

So basically, how do I find out? I'd rather find out where from before implementing hotlinking blocks.

**Baby Boy** · 06-03-06, 11:18 PM

Ummmmm, hmmmmm, your host should know. Tell him/her to check your logs for URL's out of your range. I know my host has these logs and all but I don't know how they work though. Hope I've helped and best of luck to you.

Michael C · 06-04-06, 05:00 AM

Are you sure someone is hotlinking? In you stats prog under the most requested files does it show those images?

GlobalWebDan · 06-04-06, 08:56 AM

Yes, check the requested files list, and then check the IP address list and see if there is one certain IP (or block of IPs) that seem to be giving your site an enormous amount of hits.

Fae Dragon · 06-05-06, 06:00 PM

You may have already looked at this but in the cpanel on my host I can block people from hot linking to my images period, I don't need to know thier IP address. Are you certain your host dosen't have this option available?

**Chris Gwynne** · 06-05-06, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fae Dragon

You may have already looked at this but in the cpanel on my host I can block people from hot linking to my images period, I don't need to know thier IP address. Are you certain your host dosen't have this option available?

Hey yep, I've enabled this option now.

I was just trying to find out WHO was leeching off me, of which I never managed to find..

GlobalWebDan · 06-05-06, 06:25 PM

Has it worked in stopping the bloody leach? (no pun intended

)

**Chris Gwynne** · 06-05-06, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlobalWebDan

Has it worked in stopping the bloody leach? (no pun intended

)

Yep. Although I had to switch hosts, and forgot to enable the setting, they managed to get about 1.5GB before I noticed. lol

**Baby Boy** · 06-05-06, 08:19 PM

LOL, that's great, sucks at whoever did it, deserves them to be slapped.

**Avix** · 06-06-06, 05:30 AM

when someone leeches from me I prefer to get some extra exposure from it.

So I will replace the image, flash file or whatever they are hotlinking, to a huge advert for my site.

The best thing is flash files (games etc) because they can load like normal so the site owner is unaware of anything odd. but after a few seconds load a big ad that links to your site