Cookies
Silktide lists every cookie your website sets while your pages are tested. This is an inventory for your reference, not a problem to fix, so it does not affect your scores.
Why this matters
Most websites set more than their owners realise, because third-party services like analytics, advertising, chat widgets, and embedded videos set cookies of their own. Privacy laws such as the and the ePrivacy Directive expect you to know what cookies you set, tell visitors about them, and in many cases obtain consent first.
A complete inventory is the starting point for all of that: you can't document or ask consent for cookies you don't know exist.
How Silktide tests this
- Load each page in a real browser, running scripts just as a visitor's browser would.
- Record every cookie that is set while the page loads, whoever set it - your own code or a third-party service.
- Group identical cookies by their name, the domain they belong to, and their
path, so the same cookie appearing on many pages is shown once, with details
such as whether it is marked
Secure(only sent over ) andHttpOnly(hidden from ). - Report the number of unique cookies and the average number of cookies per page over time.
Troubleshooting
A cookie I expect isn't listed
Silktide only sees cookies set during a normal page visit. Cookies that are set after an interaction - logging in, accepting a consent banner, adding an item to a cart - may not appear unless the test performs that interaction.
I don't recognise a cookie
Search the cookie's name online along with the name of the services you use; most third-party cookies are documented by their provider. Embedded content such as videos and maps is a common source of unexpected cookies.