Please do not "Hot Link" your images.

FIA · 10-20-2008, 11:50 AM

"Hotlinking" is when, instead of saving a picture to your computer and then uploading it to Webkinz Insider, you copy the address of the picture on another site and use that address to post the picture here on WI. This takes away server/processing resources from the other site and can slow down Webkinz Insider because WI's server has to look back at that other site every time it wants to load a page. If the other site has a small or slow server, this can drag down both sites.

There are exceptions. Sites like "tinypic", "photobucket", "imageshack", etc that are set up specifically for you to hotlink to are different. These sites are made for hotlinking. They have super servers that are very fast and are set up to handle this sort of thing. Any site that actually gives you the code and tells you to cut and paste it to where you want the image to go is fine.

Thank you for understanding.

--FIA

Here is a much more detailed explanation from the site WEBWEAVER:

Originally Posted by webweaver

You see an image you'd love to add to your website, you:

Download it to your hard drive and upload it to your own server (after checking that is is allowed to be used)... or,
Add it to your page without uploading it to your website.

If you chose #1, congratulations, you've already decided to not hotlink!

If you chose number 2... please read why this is theft.

Please click HERE to read the rest of the article.

Originally Posted by webweaver

Bandwidth is a bit like gas for a car. Every time you drive (or a file is loaded), a bit of fuel (or bandwidth) is used up. Now imagine if each night one of your neighbors siphoned out a tiny bit for their own car... then other neighbors thought "I'll just take a couple drops as well"... by morning your fuel tank is empty. Your neighbors each thought taking just a tiny bit would be unnoticeable.. but added all up it left nothing for you.

Serving up images is not only usually our biggest consumer of bandwidth, when others remotely link to them (ie. embed them in their websites from our servers without our permission), we have to pay... bandwidth is not free! Most websites have a limited amount of data transfer and the website owners either have to cough up extra money each month to pay the fees, or face shutting down.