Since I’ve recently activated the Hotlink Protection on this website, please advise me if you find any error (like an image not displaying correctly…). I’ve done so because I reached 80% of my monthly bandwidth and looking at the stats it seems that many were just linking directly to my old blog’s images (like the ones of Ar*a Giov*nni or Ta*my Pl*nte).
I’ve implemented the script that’s shown on JavascriptKit and I’ve tried/tested the hotlink protection with Hotlink Checker. Everything seems working now.
I had some difficulties using the Altlab.com method but then I found the JavascriptKit’s updated one and it now works. Even with Wordpress’s Permalinks activated inside the .htaccess file.
I’ve got a great 404 page with a redirect to the main page. A great hotlink protection. No more subdomains full of crap contents. I have to say that I’m happy now. My daily visitors dropped from 2800 of April 2005 to 200 of October 2005 (now).
Though the number of visits is clearly lower than the previous one, I think I’ll benefit from a narrower “but cleaner and coherent” target. I don’t want 2600 people to hit my site only because I’ve got really nice pics showing up here (and I don’t want google images to steal my bandwidth too). I’d prefer to have 200 “true” readers.
I believe that it’s not the quantity of traffic you get that makes you a great blogger (like the quantity of pages indexed by a search engine doesn’t make it the best one). Quality is the key. I’m just filtering my visitors. Fine tuning my site to target an elite audience. And yes… I’m trying to save on my bandwidth too :D