Cookies and Tracking

Cookies We Set Ourselves

• sc_consent — lasts a year. Remembers your answer to the analytics question, yes or no, so we only ask once. It is set when you answer — including when the answer is no.
• __Host-sc_session — lasts 30 days. Keeps you signed in to your dashboard after you click a sign-in link. It holds a signed record of your email address, when it was issued and when it expires — nothing else — and scripts cannot read it. It is only set when you sign in.
• sc_google_connect — lasts ten minutes, and only during the few seconds it takes to connect a Google account from Settings in your dashboard. It holds two random values that let us check the answer coming back from Google is the one we asked for. It is deleted the moment you come back, whether you connected or changed your mind, and it is never set unless you start connecting.

That is all three. Browsing the site without signing in, without answering the analytics question and without connecting Google sets none of them.

Cookies Set by Others

• Google Analytics (_ga and _ga_*) — set by Google’s analytics script where analytics storage is allowed, and never after you say no. Google sets them to last two years. They let Google count a returning visitor as one person rather than two. Google’s advertising features are switched off, none of it runs inside the dashboard or sign-in pages, and visitors in the UK, the EU, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein get no analytics at all.
• Cloudflare Turnstile — the bot check on our forms. Its widget may set its own state to tell a person from a script; it exists so the forms can work without making you solve puzzles.

Browser Storage That Is Not a Cookie

These notes are kept in your browser’s local storage, not as cookies:

• When you dismiss an announcement in the small ribbon that can appear above the site, a note of that announcement is kept so it stays dismissed. The note stays until you clear your browser’s storage, and it never leaves your browser.
• sc_first_touch — how your first visit reached us: the campaign tags in the link you followed (the utm_ part), the website you came from (its name only, never the page), and the page you landed on. It is used for 90 days and removed on your next visit after that, sent with a free audit if you ask for one, and tells us which places bring people here. It follows your analytics choice. It is not kept if you said no, it waits for a yes where your browser’s time zone could be in Europe, and visitors in the UK, the EU, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein keep none.
• sc-help-topics — whether you hid the list of topics in the help centre, so it stays hidden as you move between articles. It stays until you clear your browser’s storage, and it never leaves your browser.

What We Do Not Use

We use no advertising or remarketing pixels, from anyone. We do not record your session or build heat maps of it, and we do not fingerprint your device to identify or track you. We use no third-party font service that would watch your page loads — the fonts are served from our own site.

Your Analytics Choice

Visitors in the UK, the EU, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein get no analytics at all: our site loads no Google script for them, asks them nothing and keeps no first touch. Elsewhere, Google’s analytics cookies are set unless you say no, and where your browser’s time zone could be in Europe we also ask you. A no means Google’s script sets no analytics cookies, and the ones it set before are removed. Google’s script still loads after a no, and it still sends Google a measurement ping without cookies each time a page is viewed or a form is sent. Each ping carries the page’s address, Google receives your IP address with it, and no cookie ties it to you.

Your current choice is below, and you can change it at any time. Blocking or deleting cookies in your browser breaks nothing here except staying signed in — with one caveat: your saved analytics answer is itself a cookie, so deleting cookies forgets it, and Google’s analytics cookies are then set again until you say no here.

What we store beyond your browser, and why, is in our privacy policy. Questions go through the contact form — a person reads it.