Can using .htaccess for hotlink protection can cause high server load??
I have a wallpapers site. Lots and lots of my bandwidth is being used by hotlinked images from my site. I started using this .htaccess to prevent hotlinking. I use this script in my wallpaper folder and rename the original folder to something else. So that any reference to any image in old folder will serve this hotlink image. However, I noticed that server load increases a lot when I start using this .htaccess. If I simply rename the folder having wallpapers images, the server return 404 error msg only.
Can this cause a high server load, if lots of request are received from those sites linking pictures on my site. I am using this .htaccess file on my site:
AddType application/x-httpd-php html
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule .*\.(jpg|gif)$ http://www.mysite.com/hotlink.gif [R,NC]
Thanks for your help...
