While this post may not be 100% Ubuntu Linux related, I thought it might help some of you who are having problems with sites hot linking to your content. I’ve spent the last couple days trying to clean up some problems with my blog, and still have a way to go. In the process, I found out that Circuit City is hot linking to my original content. Imagine how I was surprised when I searched through all my web stats to find out that they have been doing this for some time. That’s right… they are stealing bandwidth.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe for one minute that this is an accepted practice from their management. I don’t think their corporate offices or management team would approve, but the point is, someone is doing it and managers are not following up. What’s all the fuss you ask? Well… Like many others, I have to pay for my server, which includes the bandwidth. If someone wanted to use your cell phone to make calls for their business (or personal use), and use up a lot of your minutes, would you let them? Of course not!
The specific URL doing the hotlinking is: http://internalforum.circuitcity.com/index.php and they are linking to: http://ubuntulinuxhelp.com/the-simple-way-to-get-51-surround-sound-audio-working-in-ubuntu/
I checked and the IP address of their link is: 12.26.69.60
When I visit the site, I see it is a private login area for Circuit City personnel, therefore I assume they are hotlinking stealing bandwidth for use by their support personnel? I’m not certain, but it’s just a guess as to what they are using it for. If they wanted to use my content, they could have asked and I would have been flattered. But I’m on a tight budget and every penny counts, so stealing my bandwidth is just not cool.
I would never have realized this if I had not (taken my blog back to rebuild and) looked at the statistics (Awstats) and logs. While doing this, I bumped into the internalforum.circuitcity.com hotlinkers. A couple days ago I had to remove a very large number of IP address ranges that were being blocked (when I found out a lot of people were unable to view my blog). I wonder if I could use .htaccess to redirect the hotlinkers?
Googling found this for me: http://perishablepress.com/press/2006/01/10/stupid-htaccess-tricks/#sec10 and I wanted to share this because I think quite a few people in the community might find this information helpful.
Following the directions I created an entry like this:
# redirect any request for anything from circuitcity
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://.*circuitcity.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* http://internalforum.circuitcity.com/index.php [R]
Which should send the hotlinker’s requests to their own url and get a 404 error.
Edit the existing .htaccess (or create a new one) in the public root of your web server (commonly “public_html”).
This should work! I hope these resources (above) help some of you!
Loading ...
There are 5 comment(s) added so far...
I guess I’m a little confused on this one. How are they Hot Linking [Wikipedia] to that page? If I read that Wikipedia article it sounds like there would need to be an image or something that they’re linking to. But if they’re just providing a link to your page that their users can click on to read your article … well that sounds like a normal every day link … what the Web was built for.
If their support people are using your “How To” to help a potential new Ubuntu user to get their sound working, then that sounds like something you would want to encourage.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding?
@Joe
The images and content are stored on my server. When someone looks at the page on their server and click the link, that simply requests my images (and some code) to be sent to their internal site page. Nobody actually visits my page.
A “…normal every day link…” means someone clicks a link and goes to your page NOT to download the content and show it on their page (which is bandwidth theft).
They are not linking to me, they are accessing my content to show somewhere else.
Perhaps this link will help explain why bandwidth theft (hotlinking) is bad: http://grimthing.com/archives/2004/04/02/hotlinking-is-bad/
I remember seeing something like this, all pics were replaced by another one stating something. Like go to the original site or something.
@Roger
You mean “deep-linking”, no?
Hotlinking is when I link to an image on your site inline, which does steal bandwith.
Deep-linking is linking to a URL that is not the top level of the domain.
http://example.com/deep is a deep link. That provider still gets adsense, but they just don’t go through the homepage.
@ffm
In this case it was hotlinking. There were 100’s of object hits (with no page visits - to any pages).
(I don’t believe that it’s an approved practice at their end. I think someone did it and there’s been no follow up to make sure they don’t hotlink).