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Hot Linking, and/or Remote Linking, is when a file (usually an image) is stored on a web site's server, then displayed/served up in *another* web site's page(s) using the absolute URL for the file in the page's coding to display the image just as if the file in question was their own.

Another form of Hot Linking, and by far the most commonly used form of it, is when an image is posted/included in a message board's posted message for various reasons, and the image is stored on a server other than that of the message board. This is what happens when images hosted on Image Hosting web sites servers (such as Pixpile, and ImageShack) are included in any posted message, the bandwidth for displaying the image is charged to their server, not mine.

The same would be true for the reverse of the above, where an image is stored on my server, then used in another message board using the URL for it on my server, then it's *my bandwidth* that's charged for it.

You might ask why this is *frowned upon*, and is actually *illegal* in the strictest sense of the word.

The answer to that question is simple: The bandwidth used to display the image is charged to the server that the file is stored on, not to the message board's server, and that could be *very costly* to the owner of the server that is used to store the file(s).

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