Stephan,
Well it varies. While with most
images you will
tell the users to download the image and use it as a linking banner/image, there are cases where they would code it directly back to your site. It's kind of like, "I'm linking to you so why
shouldn't I leech this image off of your server?" - and in a sense that's true - they are "leeching" your bandwidth but also linking to your site. So when it comes down to it, those links to your site (if they involve images) are not obtained completely without cost.
When I generate linking boxes and such for others to cut and paste code into their page, I reference images. See at
http://www.tiertown.com/link.shtmlBut, if I expected a large number of sites to link to me... would I still reference the images to my own server? OF COURSE! But, I'm talking about for-profit sites... personal or nonprofit sites might think differently about being friendly about bandwith to attract users to their site. It's just a choice you will have to make if you are super concerned with bandwidth.
But, before I decided to
not reference images, or allow "leeching" by sites linking to me, I would place the images that they were to use in a separate directory so you could track exactly
how much bandwidth it was absorbing, and if you could afford it.
Hope this helps,
Muhammad Chishti
Creative dIRECTOR
[:white]
http://www.imcuniverse.com
