To protect the content of your site from hotlinking on a Windows server using Plesk control panel, you can use the built-in IIS URL Rewrite module. Here are the steps to set up hotlink protection:
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Log in to your Plesk control panel.
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Navigate to the Websites & Domains section.
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Locate the website for which you want to set up hotlink protection, and click on it.
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Click on the Web Server Settings button.
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Under the IIS Rewrite Rules section, click on the Add New Rule button.
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Select the Blank rule template and enter a name for the rule.
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In the Pattern field, enter a regular expression to match the URLs that you want to allow or block.
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In the Action section, select the type of action you want to take on matched URLs. You can either redirect the request to another URL, or return a forbidden status code (HTTP 403).
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Click OK to save the changes.
Please note that the steps may vary depending on your Plesk version.
Additionally, it's important to note that hotlinking is the practice of using a direct link to an image or other media file on another website, rather than hosting the file on your own server. This can cause the server where the image is hosted to become overloaded, and it can also consume the bandwidth of the website owner. By setting up hotlink protection, you can prevent other websites from linking directly to your images, audio, video and other files and protect your server and your bandwidth.
