Joomla User Manual

Image hotlink prevention

Definition¶

Hotlinking is the practice of linking an image on one website from an article on another website. It can be a very useful practice. This website uses many images that are actually located on the docs.joomla.org website. It saves on the time and effort required to create screenshots and on the bandwidth of this site. However, there can be copyright issues and you may wish to prevent your images being used in this way.

The method described here uses an .htaccess file, which is an Apache server feature. Other web servers may provide other methods to prevent hotlinking.

Directions¶

Place the following code in the .htaccess file of your root directory.

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourdomain.com [NC]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?google.com [NC]
    RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|webp|svg)$ - [NC,F,L]
</IfModule>

Explanation¶

The first RewriteCond allows direct requests using a URL- no referer.
The second RewriteCond allows requests from your own domain. The [NC] flag means No Case, that is, match both upper and lower case characters.
The third RewriteCond allows allows requests from Google, so your images can still appear in search results. You can add similar lines for any other sites you wish to allow.
The RewriteRule blocks requests for image files from all domains not previously allowed. The F flag tells the browser to return a Forbidden header (403). L stands for Last rule.

Block Hot Linking from Specific Domains¶

To stop hotlinking from specific domains only, such as myspace.com, blogspot.com and livejournal.com, while allowing other websites to hotlink to your images, use the following code:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(.+\.)?myspace\.com/ [NC,OR]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(.+\.)?blogspot\.com/ [NC,OR]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http(s)?://(.+\.)?livejournal\.com/ [NC]
    RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|webp|svg)$ - [NC,F,L]
</IfModule>

You can add as many different domains as you want. Every RewriteCond line except the last one should end with the [NC,OR] flags. NC means to ignore case. OR means "Or Next", as in, match this line or the next line. The last RewriteCond omits the OR flag to stop matching after the last RewriteCond.

Previous Next