Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I have tried everything to stop this to no avail at the moment and my hosts are looking into it right now to see what they can do.
Bear in mind when I tried 404ing these images and pages, Monday alone had nigh on 30,000 404s.
I've just checked my metrics and one of the affected url channels is showing zero activity even though it is still showing as active.
Any thoughts?
Interestingly I have replaced the images with Copyright Example.com on them and yesterday the other site had its best day in ages!
Are you on an Apache server ?
If so, use .htaccess to stop hotlinking.
Then report the sites to myspace for showing adult content.
Hehe...we'd already considered this however I want to do something more permanent.
If so, use .htaccess to stop hotlinking.
Yep, I was looking at that last night however in cpanel there is supposedly a hotlink protection facility but it won't enable, I'm just waiting for my host to come back to me on this.
If that won't work then I'll have to do as you suggest.
These kids are a pain in the a$$, it throws my metrics completely out of the window!
Yep, I was looking at that last night however in cpanel there is supposedly a hotlink protection facility but it won't enable, I'm just waiting for my host to come back to me on this.
If you have problems with doing it, sticky me, and I will supply you with the .htaccess code for you to add. It can be added in other ways than the .htaccess icon in cpanel.
In the short term, if you're worried about the AdSense, disable it till you get the hotlinking problem taken care of.
If you have problems with doing it
Got it done on the worst affected sites, that's nicely destroyed a few thousand myspace scumbag pages:-) Heavens do they write trash on those pages...they make MFAs look almost appealing.
if you're worried about the AdSense
I've had my head so buried in my own logs I hadn't realised until this morning that one of the url channels was showing nothing whatsoever...I guess that the AdSense team saw this channel's growth by 1000%+ and decided to disable it at their end since it's still showing at my end.
Not a problem for me, it's only a small money earner.
I wonder what's in your douche bag? :-)
I wonder what's in your douche bag? :-)
Hotlink one of my images, and you'll find out!
I can't see what hotlinkers have to do with your AdSense ads since they make request to images directly and don't even open pages with ads?
Not too sure who you are referring to here, but here's what happens...
Site A has adsense and is hotlinking to your "clean" images (Site B).
Site B (you) spot the hotlinker (Site A) and alter it to something adult.
Now site A is not only breaking the TOS for mycrapspace, but for Adsense too.
Bingo !
Bear in mind when I tried 404ing these images and pages, Monday alone had nigh on 30,000 404s.I've just checked my metrics and one of the affected url channels is showing zero activity even though it is still showing as active.
Any thoughts?
You're confusing apples and oranges as hotlinking images has absolutely nothing to do with AdSense.
AdSense is javascript running on YOUR webpage and hotlinked images do not invoke AdSense javascript.
Images loaded off your server do not impact your channels, only HTML pages with AdSense when run in a browser will impact your channels.
Consider your options with hotlinkers:
a) install the .htaccess methods (I use these) which stop this on a permanent basis
b) add your domain name into the images, use it to advertise and potentially drive traffic
c) replace the images with something that violates the TOS for the hotlinker and get them terminated
d) simply file a DMCA request which will legally stop the hotlinking
I can't see what hotlinkers have to do with your AdSense ads since they make request to images directly and don't even open pages with ads?
And therein the problem lies, they are not hotlinking directly to me.
It would seem that however they are doing this from these social networking sites etc, someone is setting up a "design template" on another site owned by the social networking site and somehow they are hotlinking from Google images, note Google images, which is then referring to my site for hotlinking.
This linking has been generating actual AdSense page impressions since it is calling not only on the image but the entire page hence the enormous increase in "everything".
Anyway, I hopefully have the thing under control now nonetheless these freeloaders are a damned menace and they're the first ones to complain when they have no job or money!
You're confusing apples and oranges as hotlinking images has absolutely nothing to do with AdSense.
Hahaha...No I'm not, I'd forgotten that I'd actually removed all the ads...doh! Good job I date stamped the .incs.
Certainly it's annoying, and I sometimes get a grief about this, too, but at the end of the day it's just a bit of traffic (okay, at 30,000 hits probably not just "a bit"). But it should be managable.
So here is my tip for you: do _not_ use htaccess, but watermark all your images and utilize the fact that your images and pages are hotlinked! It's free promotion for your site! Build your traffic!
Hahaha...No I'm not, I'd forgotten that I'd actually removed all the ads...doh! Good job I date stamped the .incs.
Yes, you are.
Hotlinked images have ZERO to do with AdSense, unless those images have actual links that click through to your pages.
unless those images have actual links that click through to your pages
I'll repeat it:
It would seem that however they are doing this from these social networking sites etc, someone is setting up a "design template" on another site owned by the social networking site and somehow they are hotlinking from Google images, note Google images, which is then referring to my site for hotlinking.
Here ya go:
[images.google.com...]
Trust me, this is the foreshortened version of it. This is not normal hotlinking, this is someone creating template backgrounds, referencing them, mainly on myspace/coolchaser, and getting people to use "my images" and then link directly via/through Google images.
I've now solved the problem, this has not been a basic <img src=> issue, far from it. The fact is that the request was generating "false" AdSense Page Impressions and I had to do something about it.
Which bit do you not understand? I have the data to prove it. I've spent 60 hours over the last 4 days resolving this issue...I'm not posting this just for the fun of it!
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(.+\.)?myspace\.com/ [NC,OR]
RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g¦gif¦bmp¦png)$ [other.example.com...] [L]
The stop-hotlink.png has to be on an other domain
to avoid an endless loop of redirects
Hotliniking people are 90% learning resistant, they do not change the code even after years.
Which bit do you not understand? I have the data to prove it. I've spent 60 hours over the last 4 days resolving this issue...I'm not posting this just for the fun of it!
I believe you're having hotlinking, had the same Google image hotlink nonsense pulled on my site.
The only way it would result in a "false positive" is if someone clicked the image link which actually displayed your full page on the bottom half of Google image results.
Technically, you're attempting to block actual humans interested in the image they saw, not a false AdSense impression whatsoever as this occurs naturally in Google Image Search all the time.
Like I said before, the actual event of hotlinks does not, will not, and never will increase your Google AdSense impressions.
People are going to the Google Image Results page to see a larger image view which then does show them your page, AdSense and everything else.
Hope I cleared that up for you because you have 2 issues:
a) hotlinking aka bandwidth hijacking to display your images and,
b) people interested in your images clicking thru and seeing your full page via Google Image Results
Blocking the hotlinking will actual block what sound like potentially interested clients.
When I blocked the hotlinking it was on a 100% crap site sending 100% crap traffic so evaluate the situation carefully before shooting yourself in the foot.
I am surprised the search engines haven't stopped this "loophole"
It's not a loophole, the search engines love traffic and don't care if you link to them.
My final defense was to move all images into an /images/ directory and block access via robots.txt
Unfortunately, neither Google, Yahoo or Bing really honor their robots.txt in such a manner and the images remained in each search engine.
I then had to go into each search engine's webmaster control panel or equivalent and submit a REMOVAL request for /images/ to stop the madness.
That was on top of .htaccess hotlink stopping code.
Took about 5 weeks to stop it altogether.
