bad nature of hotlink protection

[[BV]]

what's so bad about hotlinking?

it's more eyeballs on your stuff right?

i can see maybe for affiliates if they are hosting sponsor watermarked content, they would be losing

but for me, it's free advertising :-)

[burntfilm]

Originally Posted by [BV]

what's so bad about hotlinking?

it's more eyeballs on your stuff right?

If a site is indexing and hotlinking all the photos in your affiliate program and placing them on html pages with ads for dating sites and other stuff but no links to YOUR sites, as the sites I mentioned above do, then I'm against it.
The fact that on the sites I mention above, the surfer has to have searched for the sites they want images from, means there's no "eyeball" or impression based value there for me at all.

So yeah, it just ends up that programs that allow these particular sites to do that are playing the role of suckers, creating the content and paying for the bandwith that these cats use to sell other products. If they're cool with that, good for them, it just isn't a role I'm well suited for.

That's just the sites I have blocked, there are other reasons not to allow hotlinking, and there are instances where hotlinking should be allowed or is necessary!

concurrent post points some of those out:
Hotlinking question I had