HuskyPup - 3:37 pm on Oct 14, 2010 (gmt 0)

I didn't use CPanel to set up the hotlink protection.

The strange thing is that the first time I did it I didn't use CPanel either yet when I checked it there was my htaccess coding so I then did everything from CPanel.

After speaking with CPanel last night they advised me to check both the boxes:

Allow direct requests (ie. entering the URL to an image in your browser)

Since they "think" that may be the issue. Anyway, I've enabled hotlink protection again since a couple of days without it and they're linking from all over the place.

One or two images have come back into the image SERPs, one of them straight in at #1 which explains why that site's PIs shot up the past two days.

At the moment all my web SERPs seem fine therefore I'm going leave it as-is for a few days to see what happens. My trade directory has hardly been affected however my main B&M site is still at least 40% down and that is all image referrals.

I can live without all this hotlinking hassle therefore when it all settles down and I have an overall 20% reduction in earnings, well, so be it, it's the principle that counts with me.