What Is Hotlinking?

Date First Published: 16th November 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: Web Development

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 5/10

Learn more about what hotlinking is in this article.

Hotlinking, also known as inline linking, is the process of linking to and displaying a resource, such as an image or video, hosted on an external server instead of the website owner downloading it and uploading it to their own server. When a resource is hotlinked, it is loaded from the external server instead of the website owner's server, using the hotlinked website's bandwidth.

It is not obvious that an image is hotlinked as it blends in with the page, but if the image source contains a link to a file on an external website, that is a hotlink. This can be seen in the source code.

Example Of A Hotlink

An example of a hotlinked image can be seen below:

Is Hotlinking Recommended?

Hotlinking to external images is a useful way of adding images to a HTML document as it saves server storage space. Multiple website owners can link to one external image without having to save another copy on their server. However, it is important to keep note of these things before hotlinking:

• Website owners have no control over external images. They can be suddenly removed, changed, or renamed at any time without notice.
• Hotlinking can use up a lot of bandwidth from the external website, especially if the hotlinking website receives a lot of unique visitors. It can become an issue for the external website if their hosting plan has limited bandwidth. If they notice that someone is hotlinking, they could break the hotlink by renaming the image or they could even replace it with an offensive or embarrassing image.
• Hotlinked images might be under copyright.
• Some websites block hotlinking by CDNs, such as Cloudflare, the .htaccess file, or their web host may block it by default. Trying to hotlink to websites with hotlink protection enabled will result in no resources being loaded when hotlinking or alternative resources may be loaded, such as a message asking people to not hotlink their resources.

Note:

Avoid hotlinking to websites that you don't know. It is recommended to download the image and upload it to an image storage website that allows hotlinking or download it and upload it to your own server.