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So with the update to Google Images, Google has now decided to hotlink all their image results from your site. Many webmasters have seen a decline in traffic and CTR since this change has taken place. I personally feel this is a very shady practice by Google, basically cutting us out a little more.
I am wondering who is allowing hotlinking in general and how is blocking hotlinking but allowing Google Images to still do it, or just block all hotlinking attempts.
For me I am personally blocking all hotlinking on all my sites, but I am testing just allowing google images to hotlink on my blog. The reason I am testing is I want to see if there is a difference by allowing just GI through. When I launched the site I was blocking all hotlinking like I do for all my sites.
If you are blocking in any manner share what technique you are using to block. Would love to see others htaccess or NGINX config to block.
Here are two variants I use
block all hotlinking, except blank referrer and your site. Redirect to an image
Allow google, your site, cached images, blank referrer through, redirect to a page
If anyone uses NGINX I can post what I do on there as well.
I am wondering who is allowing hotlinking in general and how is blocking hotlinking but allowing Google Images to still do it, or just block all hotlinking attempts.
For me I am personally blocking all hotlinking on all my sites, but I am testing just allowing google images to hotlink on my blog. The reason I am testing is I want to see if there is a difference by allowing just GI through. When I launched the site I was blocking all hotlinking like I do for all my sites.
If you are blocking in any manner share what technique you are using to block. Would love to see others htaccess or NGINX config to block.
Here are two variants I use
block all hotlinking, except blank referrer and your site. Redirect to an image
Code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.+\.)?YourSiteHere\.com/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteRule .*\.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /images/dontStealBandWidth.jpg [L]Allow google, your site, cached images, blank referrer through, redirect to a page
Code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} \.(gif|jpe?g|png)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !YourSiteHere\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !google\. [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !search\?q=cache [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /index.php?/$1 [R,NC,L]If anyone uses NGINX I can post what I do on there as well.
