Guides
Plain answers to questions about cookies, consent and AI on your site. No legal jargon.
Cookies and consent
What is Consent Mode v2, and what do I lose in Google Ads without it?Consent Mode v2 is how your site tells Google tags what the visitor agreed to. Without it, Google does not know whether it may use the data, so remarketing lists and conversion measurement stop working for visitors from Europe.What must you not do in a consent window?Consent has to be free and informed, so the window must not push the visitor towards "accept". The most common mistakes are a hidden reject option, unequal buttons, pre-ticked categories and blocking the site until consent is given. The details differ slightly from country to country.What is the difference between necessary cookies and all the rest?Only cookies without which something the visitor asked for would not work are necessary: login, basket, language choice. Everything else, meaning statistics, advertising and convenience extras, needs consent. The category depends on what the cookie is for, not on how much you need it yourself.Does Google Analytics need consent?Yes. Google Analytics stores cookies on the visitor's device that are not necessary for the site to work, so the rules require consent first. Google also requires consent under its own policy for visitors from Europe.Does my site need a consent window at all?Not every site does. If your site stores only what it needs in order to work, you do not need a consent window. If you run analytics, advertising tags, embedded video or a chat from an outside service, the rules require consent before those tools store anything.How do I check whether my site tracks before consent?Open the site in a private window, click nothing in the consent window, and look at the list of stored cookies in the browser tools. If statistics or advertising cookies are there, the site tracks before consent. The whole test takes a few minutes and needs no extra software.