Add a link to nohotlink image

[subject101]

Hi;

I'd like to add a link to this rule I'm using for avoiding hotlinking;

RewriteRule .*\.(gif¦jpg¦jpeg¦bmp¦png)$ [externaldomain...] [R,NC]

so whenever somebody tries to steal my images he gets my hotlink.jpg image plus a dofollow link to my web.

Is it possible?

[jdMorgan]

No, because by definition, any link applied to an image must be applied in the HTML. And the HTML in this case is on someone else's page.

Consider watermarking your image(s) with your domain name.

Jim

[subject101]

Thanks for your answer Jim :)

Regarding watermarking, I already did it but it seems nobody cares :(

[jdMorgan]

Frankly, for hotlinked images, I set my server to return a tiny 403-Forbidden response. Doing this, the image on the hotlinking page appears broken to most users but not to that site's Webmaster (because his browser has cached your image). So, his users will report problems on his site that he cannot see, and he may waste a bunch of time trying to troubleshoot. Having done that, he may decide that your image is "buggy" and can't be trusted, and decide to remove it...

And if not, then his users will continue to think his site is buggy, low-quality, poorly-maintained...

"Revenge is a dish best served up cold."

Jim

[subject101]

Hey Jim;

I thought that instead of serving a "this content is being stolen..." hotlink image, it would be better to serve a big banner advertising the web. That's why I wanted to add a link :)

As you said, as long as the copy-paster has the stolen images cached, he won't notice the banner.

[Terabytes]

...just my 2-cents here....

Over the years, I've discovered that most of these types of sites are short lived...(less than a year, sometimes less than a couple months)

The people that create these sites by hot linking to your images, normally don't have a clue about what their doing and the sites normally die off. The problem goes away all by itself after a short time...

I've always served up 403's like JD, why waste the extra bandwidth of serving up an image to these clowns? I don't think I'd want any type of advertising on these sites anyway...

Just stop them at the door, and forget about them....

Tera