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[Hans]

I am sure you all have problems with hotlinkers, it is just how things work. You have probably tried all kinds of hotlinking protections and even voodoo, but in the end you are still on the losing side. It is time to change, it is time to collect hotlinkers

This is a screenshot of gamesfort.net statistics, see what happens on 25th! So how did I do it? AdWords? Post on arcadewebmasters.com (BTW don't forget to visit www.gamesfort.net)? Asked all my friends to visit my website? No, I cashed in my hotlinkers. There is one thing you should never forget when dealing with hotlinkers - they are stupid! Also they do not control what they are hotlinking to, it is you who has to decide what you want them to see

So how to abuse abusers?
First thing you should do is write/generate swf file that links or redirects to your site, this is what I used http://www.gamesfort.net/files/gamesfort_is_better.swf

Now create .htaccess file in files directory - not the directory where your SWF, AVI, FLV... files are located, but the directory where this directory is in. So if files are in files/file/ (when using onArcade, might be different when using other scripts) then you place this file inside files/. And place this code inside it:

Code:

RewriteEngine On
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.yoursite.com/your_site_ad.swf

Replace http://www.yoursite.com/your_site_ad.swf with link to SWF file you generated before.
This code redirects user to http://www.yoursite.com/your_site_ad.swf if nothing better is found. But how to make sure nothing better is returned? Easy, change the directory name where your files are located and after that hotlinkers will get only 404 errors. Don't forget to change the files directory name in your script admin panel, otherwise your visitors will also get "This site sucks!" message.
This is where you do it when using onArcade:

And this is the result http://www.onarcade.net/file.php?f=117

Now every time you want to cash in your hotlinkers you just change the name of files directory, but don't do it too often because catching real big fish takes time

So good luck with collecting your hotlinkers! Or if you do not want to deal with them then send them to gamesfort.net and I will abuse them myself

Hans

[warning9]

Wow this is great.  For some reason AWM's spam filter caught it, but I fixed it.  Anyway my only question is, is how do you find out who is hot linking to you in the first place?

[brendgard]

ROTFL

My daughter is looing at me funny wondering why I'm laughing so hard! I love it. Good one!

[Ryan1212]

Wow this is great.  For some reason AWM's spam filter caught it, but I fixed it.  Anyway my only question is, is how do you find out who is hot linking to you in the first place?

I would also like to know how you can tell your being hotlinked?  Or did you just take a guess and hit the jackpot?  This is sounding pretty evil/great so far lol

[Hans]

If I am not mistaking then when your files are being hotlinked you start seeing that kind of lines in awstats under Pages-URL (direct links to your files):

/files/file1234/on-32.swf
/files/file1234/on-26.swf

But you'll see nice little list of people who were hostlinking to your files after applying this little traffic generator.

[dabontv]

yup used this before, if you're lucky to catch it early you get a lot.  Takes a lot of time in most cases though, I usually do this once or twice a month to my popular files.

[Ryan1212]

now one thing i dont understand and i'm sure you all can correct me, why isn't han's having a major spike in bandwidth usage if they are linking and using his files all over the place?  Atleast i thought thats what happened when they use your files like that?

[Hans]

now one thing i dont understand and i'm sure you all can correct me, why isn't han's having a major spike in bandwidth usage if they are linking and using his files all over the place?  Atleast i thought thats what happened when they use your files like that?

bandwidth usage is up because before people played only one or two hotlinked game, now they have my whole site full of games to play plus this isn't the first time I have changed the name of directory where my files are in, this is the first time I have replaced 404 errors with my ad. Currently my files directory name is file123456, but it has been anything from games to random characters before and thanks to this code now everybody who have ever linked to my files are now linking to my ad.

[2grand]

well,your stats don't make any sense.
if someone hotlinks you and a visitor goes to that page it show as a visit in awstats even if they didn't go to your site.
stats on one site.

i don't do over 1000 UV a day.
this just the myspace.there are other sites.

[Hans]

well,your stats don't make any sense.
if someone hotlinks you and a visitor goes to that page it show as a visit in awstats even if they didn't go to your site.
stats on one site.

i don't do over 1000 UV a day.
this just the myspace.there are other sites.

might not make sense, but it works... and it works very well. But I wouldn't suggest you doing it, because you allow hotlinking to your games:

<a href="http://www.2grandarcade.com/swf/592.swf" target="_blank">http://www.2grandarcade.com/swf/592.swf</a>
<center><a href='http://www.2grandarcade.com/'>Free Online Games</a></center>

if you now start killing hotlinkers then this would be stupid.

[hawkal]

I was wondering if there was anyway of doing this without the swf? It's just I've never used or needed flash. Also how would you overcome the issue of allowed hot linking as stated above. It'd probably make for some nice traffic but anyone who has your game on myspace would be quick to remove it.

[brendgard]

I was wondering if there was anyway of doing this without the swf? It's just I've never used or needed flash. Also how would you overcome the issue of allowed hot linking as stated above. It'd probably make for some nice traffic but anyone who has your game on myspace would be quick to remove it.

To get the full effect of it, you need the flash part. The person who is trying to play the game that is hot linked from another site is doing so through a web page from the other site. The web page is trying to send, and the person's browser is expecting, a flash file of some sort. If they don't get one, the embedded macromedia player won't display anything at all, just a blank spot. Meaning the 404 error telling them where to find the game for real won't be displayed either. Done this way, the player not only sees that the site doing the hot linking is doing so, they are automatically redirected to the site where the game is really located.

As for MySpace embedding, if they are using a link to the page it is played through instead of the game itself, and if you keep your script configured right, it will automatically know where the games is located, and bring it up when somebody clicks on the link in a MySpace account. If they are linking directly to the game instead of the page it is played through, then you want to squash that anyways as that is the very same hot linking you are not wanting. It eats up your bandwidth without showing your advertising.

[Ryan1212]

this might just be me but i think this could be somewhat of a tutorial?  A nice method to build traffic given your arcade has been around for a little while, since its looking to me like this type of linking is very common?

[brendgard]

Me thinks you might be right Ryan. This seems to be something most arcade site owners have to deal with sooner or later. And this looks like an excellent way to deal with it(not to mention hilarious).

[Ryan1212]

ok now ive found some flash games being directly linked, quite a few actually,  but i just realized, could those be from people using the "add this game to your myspace, blog, website" feature?

PS**  I'm thinking some of this might be from myspace traffic, but it doesn't add up to me.  - http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm   Pages-149   Hits-685



Does that stat from myspace account for all those swf files?  It doesnt look like it would to me.