First, let’s define what hotlinking is: A more harsh but accurate term for hotlinking would be bandwidth theft. That’s right, theft (If you have permission from someone to link to their files, then that’s a different story). Linking directly to a file, for example an image, to display on your site is hotlinking. Similarly, directly linking to a downloadable file from another site is hotlinking. Although hotlinking is not illegal, it is unethical, because the hotlinker is enhancing his/her site at the expense of another webmaster. Please note that linking to another webpage (like the html page) is perfectly acceptable, because you are still sending viewers to the original site of the files if they choose to click on the link.
Folks, if you are not an experienced webmaster but have a blog, myspace, etc., then here’s a little tip to help you be courteous to other webmasters on the web. Please do not hotlink to files (most common ones are images) that you find on other sites. I am not writing this to reprimand anyone, (unless you’re an experienced but inconsiderate webmaster who knowingly hotlinks) but rather to inform individuals who may not know about the consequences of action. If you get a lot of visits to your xanga blog, for example, then you should upload the image you use as your background to a free image hosting site and the background music to another free hosting site to be courteous to the sites that you got those files from. Use the newly uploaded file links instead of the links to the original sites.
I did not understand how annoying hotlinkers was until I started creating my own websites. Most hosting providers have a bandwidth (transfer) limit. This is the amount of data that can be downloaded from the server (usually reset monthly). For example, the hosting provider I am using gives me 15 GB of bandwidth. That means the total downloads from my site’s files cannot exceed 15 GB, or my site will be frozen. Consequences for other webmasters may be worse. Many free hosting providers offer much less bandwidth than mine does (I think I have one of the better ones), so if you hotlink to the files of those users, they will run out of bandwidth and have their sites frozen very early in the month. If you hotlink to files from larger sites that use paid hosting, you may cost them money. Bandwidth overcharge costs are very high for many paid hosting providers. It may cost them $1.00 per GB or even up to $5.00 per GB in some cases.
If you’re still inconsiderate of other webmasters after reading what I have stated above, then I will give you another disadvantage of hotlinking. If the file that you hotlink to is ever removed or altered, then it will not be displayed properly on your page either. That would lead to your page looking either incomplete or awkward. If you do not have the file saved, then you will never be able to retrieve the file that you have previously hotlinked to if the webmaster who had it uploaded removes or alters it. If you can upload the files somewhere else, have reassurance that the file will always be there, and save others money and trouble, then what do you have to lose?
Here are some free image hosting sites that allow you to link to their files. This kind of linking is not unethical, because these hosting sites are made for hotlinking and practically request that you link to their files.
If you want to link to files other than images, then please use the sites that I mentioned in one of my previous posts about file hosting. You can use those sites for images too.
Free image hosting is very common over the internet. I am just going to mention a few, but there are plenty more alternatives on the internet. Why hotlink when you can courteously, reliably, conveniently, and freely use such services?
www.imageshack.us
This is the site that I use most frequently. They allow images up to 1.5 mb, which is sufficient for most images that I have. In addition to that, there is an option of registering, but it is not mandatory. If you register, then you will be able to more easily keep track of your files and retrieve links to them if you ever need to in the future. They also have an optional resizer if you do not want to display giant pictures on your pages (recommended if you have high resolution pictures). There is also no bandwidth limit.
http://www.quickfileupload.com/imgupload/
This site is good if you want to upload really large images, because they allow images up to the size of 30,000 kb. Registration is not required, but that means that it is more difficult to keep track of your images in an organized manner. They also do not appear to have a bandwidth limit.
www.photobucket.com
This is probably one of the most popular image hosting sites. Registration is mandatory, but you can organize your photos into albums. There is a 1 GB storage limit and 10 GB/month bandwidth limit, which is enough for most users, but if you really need more, you can create multiple accounts. The file size per image is limited to 1 mb, but they automatically resize pictures that are too large.
Again, there are many more of these types of sites on the internet. I just mentioned a few of the better ones as examples. Isn’t this better than hotlinking?
