cookie policy
Last updated 19 October 2026
what cookies are
Cookies are small text files stored in your browser when you visit a website. They allow the site, or third-party services the site uses, to recognise your browser across page views and visits. Some cookies are essential for core functionality; others support analytics, and when those are set depends on where you are, as explained below.
how this site uses cookies
This site uses no advertising cookies and no cookies for personalisation or marketing. Two kinds of cookie can be set: analytics cookies, as described under how consent is applied, and one security cookie set by Cloudflare, which serves the site. The Ahrefs web analytics tool sets none at all, being cookieless by design.
No functional or session cookies are set by this site itself. The consent preference you set via the banner is stored in your browser's local storage, not as a cookie. The security cookie is described under security cookie below.
how consent is applied
Analytics tools on this site are delivered through Google Tag Manager
(container GTM-TZ4LP3MM). Tag Manager sets no cookies of its own. It is a
loader that decides which analytics tools are allowed to run, based on Google Consent
Mode v2 signals derived from your choice.
How Google Analytics starts depends on where you are, which Google works out from your connection. In the UK and outside the European Economic Area, it runs from your first page under the UK's exception for statistics collected to improve a website (the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, Schedule A1). That exception lets this site measure how its pages are used without asking first, provided the data is used only to improve the site, Google processes it only on this site's behalf, and you can object at any time: reject on the banner, or the controls below, turns it off immediately.
In the European Economic Area and Switzerland, Google's tag loads but runs in a consent-denied state until you accept: it sets no cookies, creates no identifier for you, and sends only aggregate, non-identifying signals.
Everywhere, Microsoft Clarity does not load at all until you accept, because its session recordings go beyond the statistics that exception covers. Advertising and personalisation consent is never granted by this site under any circumstances, so no advertising cookies are set whatever you choose.
Clarity does not read Google Consent Mode signals, so when you accept we send it a separate signal of its own, granting analytics storage and denying advertising storage. Until it receives that signal the Clarity project is configured to record nothing at all.
analytics cookies
Google Analytics sets the first two unless you reject it, or, in the European Economic Area and Switzerland, only once you accept. Microsoft Clarity sets its two only once you accept.
Google Analytics 4
GA4 is used to measure page views, session behaviour, and traffic sources. All data is aggregated and no personal identity is inferred.
Google Analytics asks for two years on both of these. Browsers cap any cookie at 400 days, so 400 days is what actually lands on your device, and that is the figure quoted above.
Microsoft Clarity
Clarity records anonymised session data including scroll depth, clicks, and heatmaps. Recordings are used to identify usability issues. No keystrokes or sensitive inputs are recorded.
Clarity is also capable of setting cookies on Microsoft's own domains, including
CLID on clarity.ms and MUID on
bing.com, which Microsoft uses for advertising as well as analytics.
We tell Clarity that advertising storage is denied for every visitor, whether you
accept or reject, so those should not be set. If any do appear, they are on
Microsoft's domains rather than ours, so this site cannot delete them and you would
need your browser's cookie settings or Microsoft's own privacy controls. Browsers
that block third-party cookies, which Safari and Firefox do by default, stop them
independently of anything we do.
_ga, _ga_2K2YXR2Z56, _clck and
_clsk are first-party cookies and are deleted immediately if you
reject analytics below.
cookieless analytics
Ahrefs web analytics is loaded on all pages without consent because it does not set any cookies and does not collect personal data. It uses aggregate, privacy-preserving methods to count traffic. No opt-out is required or available.
security cookie
This site is served through Cloudflare, which filters automated traffic. A visitor whose request matches one of those filters is shown a verification check before the page loads. Passing the check sets one cookie, so the check is not repeated on every page you view.
This cookie is not covered by the consent banner and is set without asking. Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, consent is not required for storage that is strictly necessary to deliver the service you asked for, and measures protecting a site against automated abuse fall within that exemption. It holds no identifier used for analytics or advertising, no analytics tool on this site reads it, and it expires on its own after 30 minutes.
The filters are narrow and aimed at specific automated clients, so most visitors will never receive this cookie.
embedded content
Some pages include embedded YouTube videos. These are loaded via youtube-nocookie.com, YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, which does not set cookies when the page loads. If you play an embedded video, YouTube may set its own cookies on your device. Those cookies are governed by Google's privacy policy, not this site's consent banner.
managing your consent
Your choice is saved to your browser's local storage under the keys
cookie-consent and cookie-consent-date. It expires
after 12 months, at which point you will be asked again. You can change it at
any time below, and the change takes effect immediately. Rejecting is how you
object to Google Analytics in the UK and outside the European Economic Area, and
how you withdraw consent within it.
You can also block or delete cookies directly through your browser settings. The main browsers provide guidance here:
contact
Questions about cookies or data handling can be sent to liam@liamhayward.co.uk. Further detail on how personal data is handled more broadly is in the privacy policy.