Image unauthorized hotlinking protection - and SEO

[daedreem]

I've seen here, as well as other places in the past, comments regarding how 'right click disabling' is not an effective means of preventing bandwidth theft by people taking your images for use as backgrounds on their websites, etc., without even moving them to their own photobucket or whatever.

I currently cannot find these posts. (I tried several searches... my dumpster diving was inneffective.)

Anyway, my brother has had difficulty with individuals hotlinking his images for profile backgrounds, etc.

His site is RealPrettyStuff.com/

He's recently disabled the right-click ability to try to prevent it, which prevents some users from being able to add his site to favorites.. (evidently, not everyone is aware that can be done from the top of the screen)

I find the disable right-click annoying as well, and wanted to show him why it's ineffective.. but I couldn't find the threads I previously mentioned here...

-Can anyone give me some feedback to pass on to him?
-How about a better (but cheap or free) way to protect his bandwidth?

..PS... I tried to demonstrate to him that a google image search when showing one of his images, would allow (I think) hotlinking... and DEFINATELY allows saving of said image... (I admit I saved a couple off protected sites this way... photographs I wanted to look at for color/shape reference of a plant or animal while drawing.. NOT tracing.. said plant or animal... no one seeing the saved picture and my finished product side by side would realize there was anything more than the same type of plant/animal linking them together..)

HIS images did NOT come up in a google image search...
NOR did his site come up with a search that I think should have had him on the front page. (real pretty stuff cut glass single rose - since his site is realprettystuff, and the image most stolden is his 'cut glass single rose')
In order for his products to be found.. should he alt his images? or is that just ASKING for image theft?
what should he do to make his site search higher?

Thanks for any assistance.

[GroundZero3]

The best thing i have seen is people keeping the names of the images hotlinked and changing the pictures to something about how about you don't hotlink.


Of course the times i see people do that, they don't seem to be very pretty pictures they replace them with . It gets a point across. lol


Have you see this?
http://altlab.com/htaccess_tutorial.html

[daedreem]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GroundZero3

The best thing i have seen is people keeping the names of the images hotlinked and changing the pictures to something about how about you don't hotlink.


Of course the times i see people do that, they don't seem to be very pretty pictures they replace them with . It gets a point across. lol


Have you see this?
http://altlab.com/htaccess_tutorial.html

Hi groundzero.
Thanks for the reply.

The problem with the name changing, is that it has to be done manually by the webmaster, and the html img links have to be changed on every page that shows the image on HIS site...
I think I've seen a way to do this using automation long ago.. but my brain has lost that info, as I didn't need it at the time.

As far as the link you sent...
It looks good!!
I will have to look into it further if I can get the time around my 2-year old...

Meanwhile, let me ask you this..
SOME images you WANT to let others share...
For instance I have banners on MY site that I want people to be able to use to advertise my store.

Do you know if there's any way to use that htaccess file where you allow hotlinking access to CERTAIN images?
Either by having them all in a "hotlinkingallowed" folder, or by giving out a code to anyone wanting to use them that they could add to their link, or etc?

I've got to run now....
Darling Daughter wants me.. (sigh)
Thanks again for the help!

[howste]

GZ3 has the link to the best method that I've seen.

You're right. Disabling the right-click is annoying and the message he shows (Please don't steal my stuff!!!) is kind of insulting for potential customers that may not really be trying to hotlink. Also, why would someone with a website selling stuff not want to be bookmarked?

Let him know that it took me maybe 20 seconds to find that the URL for that image is http://www.realprettystuff.com/klmgd...ss%20Rose2.jpg

Now that I have the URL I can hotlink all I want. Or I can save the image to my hard drive and use it on a web page...

[daedreem]

Quote:

Originally Posted by howste

GZ3 has the link to the best method that I've seen.

You're right. Disabling the right-click is annoying and the message he shows (Please don't steal my stuff!!!) is kind of insulting for potential customers that may not really be trying to hotlink. Also, why would someone with a website selling stuff not want to be bookmarked?

Let him know that it took me maybe 20 seconds to find that the URL for that image is http://www.realprettystuff.com/klmgd...ss%20Rose2.jpg

Now that I have the URL I can hotlink all I want. Or I can save the image to my hard drive and use it on a web page...

Thanks Howste..
I assume you found that with view source?

Or is there another means I'm unaware of?
(I was rushed, and only thought of the source after I saw your message.. D'Oh!)

He doesn't care if his site is bookmarked.. evidently there are people telling him they can't bookmark his site though.. and the only reason I've found for that is the fact that you can normally bookmark a page by rightclicking and choosing 'add to favorites'.

He's now telling me he doesn't even mind the bandwidth use.. he just wants people to actually SEE his page, not just his images elsewhere...

I'm telling him again something I told him before.

Quote:

What you should do is when you find someone hotlinking your stuff, email them that they either need to add a CREDIT link to your site (free advertising for YOU) *OR* remove the image.

If they ignore you, you can then either complain to their host.. (Myspace, etc..) OR rename the image for a few days or permanently with a new image that says something like "I'm a rude bandwidth thief."

Of course, you wouldn't want to do the rename if you have people you've given PERMISSION to use the image using it... that would be rude to THEM... so complaining to thier host is better.

[daedreem]

I just got a reply from my brother...

Quote:

Nothing you have said here has anything to do with my problem. The problem is ppl that don't view my pages, but instead browse the image folder. I have been looking through my latest visitors pretty regular and have found many searches that pull up just my images. I tried blocking it with robots.txt but they still keep coming in (until today of course).

I guess I'll take the NRC code out for now and see what happens, now that I have made other changes.

I did see the comments from the ppl there at that site, but when I tried to register, I didn't get the confirmation e-mail. Still trying to figure out why.

So, I rerecommended the HTAccess... If you know something better to tell him.. shoot!

PS..... Did anyone know of a way to use the HTaccess method, yet still allow certain folders to be hotlinked?

I actually wouldn't mind implimenting that myself if THAT can be done... but I need my advertising banners to be hotlinkable.

[howste]

Yes, I used view source to find the URL. I believe I could have found it by looking in the browser cache also.

I think you've got a great idea with the text on the image. Just put www.realprettystuff.com on every image and leave it there. If anyone hotlinks the image, he gets advertising!

[jkrohn]

If the problem he has it people browsing the image directory then he needs to turn off directory browsing...

[howste]

Here's an example. It wouldn't look bad on his page, and when others hotlink it, he gets advertising on their page...

[EXreaction]

What about putting your images in a non-web accessible folder?

You can access the images by using the relative path in your files, but it would not be possible for anyone else to access them from a different server.