The swarmcdnkey is a public-facing Swarm CDN Key, meant to live on all your website’s public pages. It does not grant access to your Swarmify account or dashboard - it only tells our CDN which account a video belongs to. Seeing it in your page source is normal and expected.
⚠️ What unauthorized use looks like
The only practical misuse is someone copying your key to play your videos on a site you don’t own. Until your key is locked to your domain(s), a valid key will serve videos from any site, and those views would count toward your monthly view total and plan limits.
🔒 How to lock your key to your domain(s)
Domain locking is applied manually by our team - there’s no self-serve toggle in the dashboard yet. Email support@swarmify.com with the domain(s) you want authorized, and we’ll add a rule so requests using your key from other sites are dropped.
A couple of things to know:
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It’s referrer-based anti-hotlinking/embedding protection - great for stopping casual copying and unwanted embeds, but not a substitute for DRM.
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Because it keys off the page’s referrer, viewers whose browser strips the referrer (some privacy tools or strict referrer policies) may be blocked too. Send us every domain you need authorized, including staging or temporary ones.
🌐 Can I see which domains are using my key?
The dashboard doesn’t currently show a per-domain breakdown of where your views come from - usage is reported as a single account total. If you want to know which sites are serving your videos, email support@swarmify.com and we can review the activity on your key for you. And if a specific site is using your key without permission, send us the domain and we’ll add it to your block rule (see domain locking above).
💡 Why it’s off unless you ask
We leave keys unrestricted by default so you can test freely across staging environments, local machines, and temporary domains. When you’re ready for tighter security, email support and we’ll set it up. (A self-serve version is on our roadmap.)
📊 Monitor your usage
Check your dashboard periodically for unexpected view spikes. If something looks off, contact support - we can review activity and lock your key to your domains for you.