Hot Linking... Defintion....

[figment1986]

Their has been a problem with "Hot Linking" recently and i felt we should discuss what this is. And what it can cause.

This is taken directly from my Webdesign 2 class:

Linking to images, also known as "hot linking" or "bandwidth stealing" is a big no-no in the web design industry. Hot linking refers to linking directly to non-html objects that are not located on your own server. These objects can be images or Flash movies or JavaScript files. Through hot linking, the web site and/or server owner is robbed of bandwidth (which equates to money) as the "robber" benefits from showing content without having to pay for delivering it. The most common form of hot linking is linking to another site's images.

Another problem with hot linking is that you are no longer in control of the content of your site. You are relying on another webmaster and his/her server for important elements of your web site. If those elements are moved or are removed from the other server, you lose your content with no notification. It is extremely important that you legally obtain your images and other media elements and house them on your own server.

See. Hotlinking is wrong as it takes away the bandwith.... and their is another reason why it is wrong.

Search engines look for the "hits" a site has by sending out "search bots" to the sites. if the forum is set up to be seen like this the bots will see the its and classify the forum. by posting photos here form somewhere else they are essntially paying for our hits. they take the photo and we get the search engines to up our ranking.

Now here is what I believe is right with it. If you have permission to display the image or video.. Thats ok. if you own the image yourself you may display it. otherwise link to the site displaying the iamge. If it is on a forum, ask if you may display it then link it....

Please do not "Hot Link" without permission anymore.

[The Mad Hatter]

This thread was not necessary. If this were a real problem then the mods would have addressed it already.

[figment1986]

I felt the one remartk from dusty was perhaps enough to educate some people. As many people may not know what this is and what they may be doing somewhere else....

[The Mad Hatter]

I felt the one remartk from dusty was perhaps enough to educate some people. As many people may not know what this is and what they may be doing somewhere else....

That's great but did Dusty ask you to do that? I would assume there is already something in the MC rules about this.

[figment1986]

(nothing is currently in the Micechat FAQ & Rules..)

that and their is no reason not to talk about this... I talked about firefox last month....

[mamabot]

This is something that is currently being discussed by the staff, at the prompting of Dusty, not quite an hour before Figment posted this thread.

Please be patient with us as we are still trying to establish the community rules.

[tabacco]

I will say that as a webmaster it's possible to be proactive in preventing off-site linking of one's images. You just have tooput soome effort into it. For example, consider this image (this is one of my sites, so have no wories about bandwidth theft):

http://www.adventuregamers.com/screenshot.php?id=0&screen=3253

And yet if I try to link to the image directly from offsite, this is what you'd get:



It always bugs me when webmasters complain about people linking to their images but don't make any effort to prevent it. Note that I'm not being critical of micechat's staff, but the staffs of other sites

[figment1986]

one problem is the forums dont ahve that to my knowoledge.. (i need to learn that.... I know you can block "Hot-linking" but sometimes it gets hard thanks to the softwear built in you have to say each page thats allowed.... and sometimes you have a site of nearely 50+ pages... so every page has to be added.. but yes... I know.. My friends site bgtguide.com had to do that recently thanks to other forums taking a image thats large enough and "Hot-linking" it in the forums. Taking away a lot of bandwith we are currently using for a video of SheiKra on a daytime test run...

[tabacco]

Yeah, we had issues with warez sites using our screenshots at one point.

[MickeyMania]

As a former webmaster for a few years myself, I agree with Tabacco about how site owners can just do something about it (if referral = not from my domain, then display red X.)

In the end, you can make a case for both sides, but I don't think embedding images from CNN or Microsoft into your post is really going to cause a dent, compared to something like Joe Blow's Disneyland Page on cheaphostingdotcomdotnetdotorg.whatever

[captsmith84]

Hotlinking isn't okay, and shouldn't be tolerated, unless you're hotlinking to your own server from a forum... for example, if I go to Disneyland, take a picture, then I upload it to my server, I should be allowed to hotlink to that photo from any site, like this one.

I also shouldn't be questioned about it. That will ruin a guest experience to a site. Imagine if you went to Disneyland, and you walked out of the Emporium with something you paid for, (say one of those light up spinner things) and you start using it in Tomorrowland, and a security guard comes up to you and questions you on it, because it's not from Tomorrowland, it's from Main Street.

Same goes with hotlinking.

Now, as far as Figment1986 goes, MiceChat should have a policy called... "no back-seat moderating." which basically means that basic users can't tell other users what to do and enforce the rules. It needs to be left up to the moderators.

Suggestions of course are always welcome I'm sure.

[MickeyMania]

Now, as far as Figment1986 goes, MiceChat should have a policy called... "no back-seat moderating." which basically means that basic users can't tell other users what to do and enforce the rules. It needs to be left up to the moderators.

Backseat moderating is how this board moves along (feedback system.)

And, to make the extra second point, I notice that the irony of you telling them not to let regular users make the rules is somehow lost on you. :lol:

[figment1986]

Look.... I only posted it for the educational information.. It is even in the FAQs now....

(I only backseat moderation at most other forums...)