I like this plugin. It is not complicated to use and it helps us all to practice good blogging manners. Essentially there is a habit amongst many bloggers to ‘hotlink’ an image rather than hosting the image on their own server. Lots of people writing blogs do not seem to realise that this practice essentially adds bandwidth costs to the owner of the site where that image is hosted. By hotlinking the image we are putting up the costs for that person to host their own website.
This plugin will trawl through all (or just one/some) of your posts to find any images that you have hotlinked, and then allow you to download a copy to your own server (automatically) to replace the image hotlinked. In WP 2.5 you find the settings at manage > hot linked image cacher.
These settings are amazingly easy. Simply select the post ID (or all for every post) and then set the image cacher in motion. It will identify any posts that you can grab a local copy of a hotlinked image, and after a couple more clicks you are a good neighbour again.
This means that
- You host the image and so reduce the load on the original server
- You are not caught out if the image is not available (it is hosted by you so will appear correctly)
- If the image location is changed by the other site you will not get the wrong image or a bad link
- You will not be on the receiving end of a deliberate change in image by the other site declaring you to be stealing bandwidth
This means you get to be a good net neighbour and you are in control of your posts.
Anyone who takes images from other sites should use a local copy - this plugin makes it easy to do that.
I have run out of coffee - fancy buying me one? Tags: Anyone, bandwidth, Cacher, change, control, copy, download, end, habit, host, Hot, hotlink, image, Linked, load, location, neighbour, owner, person, plugin, practice, realise, Review, Server, website, Wordpress
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