Ever get tired of people stealing your bandwidth because they hotlink your images? I used to have Myspacer's sucking my bandwidth dry because their pages got so much traffic, and they were using my images for their backgrounds, etc. There are several ways of dealing with this issue, one of which is showing a different image to them than they bargained for, but there's a new widget script available now that is even better - it gets the thieving hotlinkers to give you a backlink! Woot!
LinkMyPics is subtitled The Hotlink Advantage Maximizer. By using this script on the images you want to protect, it gives a helpful bit of code that hotlinkers can use to link to your image - this code pops up when the hotlinker right-clicks on your pics. There may be some who will still strip the backlink out of the code, but I'd be willing to bet that most will just use the code "as is". Many hotlinkers aren't HTMl-savvy, and they'll just use the code as it's given to them - and be grateful to be able to use it.
Go check it out. Right-click on the pic at the demo page, and see how it works. Pretty cool. 🙂
About the Author: Donna Fontenot
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Thanks for the tip Donna. Looks like a handy little script.
Great find Donna! I’m going to try to see if I can get the script to work with a couple of gallery softwares I use.
that is such a cool idea!!!
thanks for sharing that.
This script didn’t work for me on the demo page and I use the default settings for Apple Safari.
There is no way this script would really help with bandwidth overages. The amount of extra load put on the server running javascript would actually increase the bandwidth usage. My opinion is either upgrade to more bandwidth or block hotlinks. I personally block hotlinks using .htaccess. I posted a poorly written post about hotlinking in Febuary (just click my hyper linked name above). Just my two cents.
Chris, that’s not even close to true. You really need to learn the difference between server side scripting and client side scripting, especially if you actually are a webmaster. That sort of information definitely falls under the clasification of “basics”.
There are some issues with Safari and Opera. However, in March 08 the percentage of surfers on the web using either of those was only about 3.5%. It’s not really about what browser you, it’s about what the vast majority of people coming to your site use. Unless you run a Mac-focused community that won’t really come into play much. I am looking into those errors however.
That will work great on my funny pics site… hotlinking bandwitch costs are high (I never disabled it, cause I like allowing myspace visitors to use them)
Man I have been looking for something like this for a long time. Great script, thanks Donna.
I host most of my photos on Flickr, does the bandwidth issue still effect my blog? (I’m sure this is a silly question)
That’s not a silly question, but it is a good one. No, the hotlink bandwidth issue would not affect you in that case. It’s only for any images on your site’s hosting account.
great question, my opinion is either upgrade to more bandwidth or block hotlinks.
This is an interesting approach to dealing with hotlinkers.. I estimate i’m loosing quite alot of bandwidth due to this on various sites, it seems like it would be worthwhile to install the plugin and see if I can get some SEO benefits in exchange for the drain on bandwidth.. thx