Understanding cookie categories
NoNonsense Cookie organizes cookies into four standard categories. Here's what each category means and how to manage them.
Necessary cookies
These cookies are essential for your website to function. They handle things like session management, security tokens, and basic functionality. Necessary cookies are always active and cannot be disabled by visitors — this is permitted under GDPR because the website cannot work without them.
Examples: session cookies, CSRF tokens, load balancer cookies, authentication cookies.
Analytics cookies
Analytics cookies help you understand how visitors use your website. They collect information about pages visited, time on site, and traffic sources. These cookies require explicit consent before being placed. Visitors who decline analytics cookies will not be tracked.
Examples: Google Analytics (_ga, _gid), Matomo, Plausible, Hotjar.
Marketing cookies
Marketing cookies are used to track visitors across websites for advertising purposes. They build a profile of the visitor's interests to show relevant advertisements. These always require consent and are the most commonly declined category.
Examples: Facebook Pixel (_fbp), Google Ads (gclid), LinkedIn Insight Tag, retargeting cookies.
Preferences cookies
Preferences cookies (also called "functional cookies") remember choices visitors make on your website, such as language settings, region preferences, or display options. While not strictly necessary, they improve the user experience.
Examples: language preference cookies, theme/dark mode cookies, currency selection.
Managing your categories
You can view and manage cookie categories for each site from the Categories page in your dashboard. Here you can see which cookies were detected, which category they belong to, and add or edit cookie declarations. NoNonsense Cookie automatically assigns detected cookies to the correct category based on our database of over 100 known cookies.
Automatic cookie scanning
When you add a new site, NoNonsense Cookie automatically scans your website to detect cookies. The scanner visits your site, identifies all cookies being set, and matches them against our known cookie database. Cookies that are recognized are automatically categorized. Unrecognized cookies are flagged for your review.