This is a complete documentation of the CookieYes GDPR Cookie Consent & Compliance Notice Plugin (free version) to help you set up the plugin on your WordPress website.
CookieYes GDPR Cookie Consent & Compliance Notice Plugin- Overview
The CookieYes GDPR Cookie Consent & Compliance Notice Plugin helps you comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), DSGVO, RGPD, LGPD, and CNIL by making it easy to follow their compliance requirements on your website.
Getting Started with the Plugin
You can navigate to the plugin settings page from your WordPress admin dashboard.
WordPress dashboard > GDPR Cookie Consent tab,
You can also open the plugin from the ‘Installed Plugins‘ page of your WordPress admin.
Settings
On opening the cookie law settings page you will be able to find 5 different tabs. General, Customise Cookie Bar, Customise Buttons, Advanced, and Help Guide.
General
- Enable cookie bar- You can enable or disable displaying the cookie bar. It will be on by default.
- Select the type of law – Since the plugin assists in the compliance of both GDPR and CCPA laws, you can either choose one of them or choose both. The rest of the settings such as customization of buttons, notice, themes, etc., will be aligned as per your choice. It is selected as ‘GDPR’ by default.
- Auto-hide (Accept) cookie bar after delay? – Here you can configure if you wish to accept or hide the cookie bar when the user response is delayed. It is given ‘No’ by default.
- Auto-hide cookie bar if the user scrolls (Accept on scroll)? – Here you can configure what happens when a user scrolls. You can either set it as accept on scroll by selecting ‘Yes’ or keep it in the default mode.
Note: As per the latest GDPR policies it is required to take an explicit consent for the cookies. Use this option with discretion especially if you serve EU
The General tab is further divided into an ‘Other’ tab.
Here you can configure if you want to reload your website on actions such as Scroll accept, Accept, and Reject. All three are given ‘No’ by default.
Once finished with all the General settings, you can click the Update Settings button.
Customise Cookie Bar
Here you can customise the Cookie Bar to blend with the colour and style of your website. It is subdivided into Cookie bar and Revisit consent.
Cookie bar
- Message Heading – Here you can add a heading for the cookie bar message or leave it empty if you don’t need one.
- Message – Here you can add the message that needs to be shown on the cookie bar. You can use shortcodes within the message.
- Cookie bar colour – You can select a color for the cookie bar. White is chosen by default.
- Text colour – Here you can choose a text colour for all the text inside cookie bar. Black is chosen by default.
- Font – You can choose the right font from the drop-down. The theme font is chosen by default.
- Show cookie bar as – Here you can configure how you want to show the cookie bar to your website visitors. You can choose from the options Banner, Popup, and Widget. The banner is chosen by default.
- Position – You can choose Either header or footer as the position for the cookie bar on your website. Footer is selected by default.
- On load – Choose whether you wish to keep it animate or sticky on load.
On hide – Choose whether you wish to keep it animate or sticky on hide.
Finally, click the Update settings button to save the changes.
Revisit Consent
Here you can configure the show again tab for the cookie bar on your website. Show again tab helps your users to revoke their consent, which is one of the major requirements under GDPR compliance.
- Enable revisit consent widget – Select the checkbox to enable revisit consent widget.
- Tab Position – Choose a position to display the tab. Right is chosen by default.
- From Left Margin – Here you can configure the distance of the tab from the left margin. You can either configure a percentage or pixel value to it. 100px is chosen by default.
- Show More Text – Here you can add the text for the show again tab.
Click Update settings.
Customise Buttons
The cookie bar contains buttons such as Accept, Reject, Settings, and Read More link. This section is for customising each of them.
The following customisations can be done for each buttons.
- Text – If you want the button to have custom text, you can add it here.
- Text colour – Choose a text colour for the button.
- Show as – If you want to show the button as a link, you can choose Link here. Button is chosen by default here.
- Background colour – Choose a background colour for the button.
- Action – You can choose from two actions, close header, and open URL. If you choose ‘Close header’ the cookie banner closes itself on clicking the respective button or link. On choosing ‘Open URL’ you will be redirected to a URL specified below.
- Size – You are provided with four size options for the button (Extra large, Large, Medium, Small). Choose one from the dropdown. Medium is the default size.
Click Update Settings.
Accept Button
The ‘Accept’ button allows users to offer consent for user-selected categories of cookies. You can customise the button to either close the cookie bar or follow a link.
Accept All Button
The ‘Accept all’ button allows automatic consent for all categories of cookies.
Reject Button
The ‘Reject’ button disables cookies other than the necessary ones.
Settings Button
The settings button is used in the cookie bar to allow further control over cookies to users.
Read More Link
You can add ‘Read More Link’ button to your cookie bar to provide a link to your Privacy & Cookie Policy page.
The following customisations are possible for this button.
- Text – Add text for the button/Link. Read More is given by default.
- Text color – Choose a text color. Black is chosen by default.
- Show as – You can show it as either button or link.
- URL or Page? – Choose whether you want to connect the Read More Link to a page on your website or a URL. URL is chosen by default.
- URL – You can add the URL in the box.
- Minimize Cookie Bar in this Page/URL? – Select either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to minimize cookie bar based on your above choice.
- Open in new window?- Choose if you want to open the link or page in a new window.
- Size – Choose a size for the button from the options. ‘Medium’ is chosen by default.
Click Update Settings.
Advanced
- Reset all values – Sometimes themes apply settings that clash with that of plugins. Should that happen you can adjust the settings by clicking the button ‘Delete settings and reset’. This will reset all values to the default.
- Advanced script rendering – Advanced script rendering will render the blocked scripts using javascript thus by eliminating the need for a page refresh. It is also optimized for caching as there is no server-side processing after giving the consent.
Click Update Settings to save the settings.
Help Guide
Within the Help Guide, you can find a number of shortcodes that you can add to the message field of the Cookie Bar. This way you can add nicely formatted buttons and/or links into the cookie bar without having to add any HTML.
Hide the Cookie Bar on Selected Pages
The following code snippet allows you to hide the cookie bar on selected pages of the website or any wildcard URL entry. Simply add the code snippet to the active child theme function.php and enter the slug of the pages in the array() function on which you want to hide the cookie bar.
Cookie List
The Cookie list page contains the list of all the cookies present on your website along with their associated data (each of which is explained in the below section) such as cookie name, type, category, duration, sensitivity, ID, etc.
It is used for displaying the Cookie list/Cookie audit table on the Cookie policy or any other page using the “cookie_audit” shortcode.
You can either manually add cookies to the list or have it imported to the list after scanning your website (scanning process is explained in the below sections).
Adding Cookies Manually to the Cookie List
To manually add cookies to the list click on the ‘Add New’ button on the Cookie list page.
The opening page looks as shown below.
On the right side of the page, you can add all the necessary cookie details
Cookie Name – The name of the cookie (eg: _utmb)
Cookie description – The description contains details on what the cookie is used for, what data does it collect, how is it created, etc. (eg: Used to determine new sessions/visits. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and no existing __utmb cookies exists. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics.)
Cookie category – What category does the cookie belongs to. (eg: Analytics)
Cookie ID – Cookie ID should be the same as cookies name (eg; _utmb)
Cookie Type – Choose what cookie type the cookie belongs to. (Eg: session)
Cookie duration – You can enter it as 1 year, 3 months, etc. It is for displaying in the audit table and therefore you can enter as per your convenience. (eg: 30 minutes)
Cookie sensitivity – Cookies are either necessary or non-necessary. The necessary cookies are those cookies that, as the name indicates, are necessary for the website to function in its intended way. This type of cookies will always be active. The non-necessary cookies are those cookies whose scripts need to be added in the plugin and that the users can enable/disable.
Hit the Publish button once you have entered all the required details.
Cookie Category (Add/Edit Categories)
The plugin comes with dynamic default categories including Necessary, Functional, Analytics, Performance, Advertisement, and Others categories.
Necessary cookies will be added to the Necessary category. Users cannot disable cookies under the ‘Necessary’ category. Therefore, the Necessary category includes cookies that are essential for the functioning of the website.
The plugin also allows you to create custom categories and edit categories.
Add New Category
To add a new/custom category go to the Category page of the plugin and enter the following details.
- Name: Key in an appropriate name for the cookie category. The ‘cookie settings’ popup window displays the name within it.
- Slug: The “slug” is the URL-friendly version of the name and it will be automatically created. However, it is also possible to add a custom slug.
- Description: Type the description for the cookie category in the field provided. The ‘cookie settings’ popup window displays the descriptions beneath the cookie category name. The description is not prominent by default; however, some themes may show it.
- Category default state: If you enable the Category default state option, the category toggle button will be in the active state in the cookie consent popup. If you disabled it will be in a disabled state in the popup.
- Head Scripts and Body Scripts: Scripts corresponding to the non-necessary cookie can be specified in this field. Head scripts will be rendered on the head section and body scripts will be rendered on the body section of the website. For example:
<script> enableGoogleAnalytics(); </script> - Finally, click on Add cookie category button to update.
The categories thus added will be visible on the user-end on a pop-up when the user clicks on the Cookie Settings link on the cookie bar.
Edit Category
To edit a particular category click on the edit button beside the category from the Category page.
For example: If you wish to edit the ‘Advertisement’ category, click the edit button below it.
On the opening window, you can change all the category details as you wish. You can change the category name, slug, category description (to be displayed on the cookie popup), its default state, head scripts, and body scripts.
Once you made the changes click the Update button at the end of the page.
Manually Add Cookies to Categories
Although the plugin supports automatic cookie scan and categorization, you also have the option to manually assign cookies to categories.
You can do so by navigating to the Cookie list page of the plugin.
Click Add New.
In the opening window, you can add new cookies to the cookie list along with cookie details such as Cookie Category, Cookie ID, Cookie type, Cookie duration, Cookie sensitivity, etc.
Once you enter the required data click the Publish button.
Sample ‘Cookie settings’ popup window
The cookie settings popup window with categories added as Analytics, Marketing, and Advertisement is as shown below:
By clicking on a particular category the user can view the cookie category description added by the admin. The user can then choose to enable or disable the cookies of each category from the popup.
Cookie Scanner
The cookie scanner automatically scans your website for cookies (both first and third-party) and assigns all the cookies into their respective categories. Plus the plugin allows you to create custom categories and edit categories, etc.
These cookies along with their description will be listed within the Cookie notice/Cookie Banner. You can enable your visitors to allow granular consent for cookies.
Follow the below steps to enable auto-scan on your website.
Step 1 – Click the Cookie Scanner tab from the dashbaord.
Step 2 – The opening page will have a button that says ‘Connect & Scan‘. Click the button.
Note: Clicking “Connect & scan” will let you connect with a free CookieYes account and initiate scanning of your website for cookies.
Step 3 – Now you will be shown a popup that welcomes you to enter your email address for creating an account with CookieYes ( it is required to proceed with the scanning process). Your account will be automatically created by entering your email ID.
Step 4 – Click Connect. The opening page displays your connection status with CookieYes.
Step 5 – Click the Scan website for Cookies button.
Step 6 – In this step, you will be required to verify your CookieYes account through the verification link sent by CookieYes via email.
- Open the email and click the link
You will be shown your verification status from CookieYes.
Step 7 – Go back to the plugin dashboard and continue with the scanning process.
Depending on your website speed and the number of pages (to scan) it might take up to a few minutes to a few hours to complete the entire scanning process. You will be notified via email once the scan is complete.
Following a screenshot of the scan complete window.
It will contain details including,
- Time and date of scan
- Total URL’s scanned
- Total cookies detected by the scan
- Detected cookie names, duration, category, and description.
- An option to import all the cookies and their data into the cookie list.
Import to Cookie List
The scanned cookies can be replaced, merged, or even appended with the existing cookie list.
Click on Start import to add cookies to the existing list. Go to GDPR Cookie consent > Cookie List, to view all the cookies of your site.
Enabling Cookie Scanner (Existing Users)
Cookie Scanner is a new feature added to the plugin (it used to be a premium-only feature). If you are an existing user of the plugin, you may follow the below steps to enable auto-scanning & cookie categorization for your website.
Step 1 – Click the Cookie Scanner tab from the Dashboard.
On updating the plugin two menus Necessary and Non-necessary will be replaced by the new menu Cookie scanner.
Step 2 – The opening window will contain information regarding migrating your existing cookie categories (Necessary & Non-necessary) to a new cookie category taxonomy. This action is required for enabling auto-scan.
Step 3 – Click the Migrate cookie categories button.
Now you will be redirected to the Cookie Category page of the plugin.
Step 4 – Rest of the steps are the same for both new and existing users. You can go to the above section to continue with the steps.
Policy (Privacy/Cookie) Generator
Policy generator allows you to easily generate a Cookie Policy page for your website.
Cookie policy content is added by default. You can replace the relevant terms to match it to your website.
By un-selecting the template from the left side you can also remove the unwanted content from the policy page. You also have the option to add new content to it.
Once you are done with editing the policy content, you can look at its live preview by clicking the Live preview button and if it looks good to you can publish it right away by clicking the Create Cookie Policy Page.
Privacy Overview
Here you can add a custom title and description for Privacy Overview and click the Save changes button.
Following is a screenshot of the Privacy Overview on the front-end of your website.
Script Blocker
This section allows you to manage automatic script blocking for your website. The following plugins are currently supported for auto-blocking.
- Google Analytics for WordPress by Monster Insights
- Official Facebook Pixel
- Smash Balloon Instagram Feed
- Smash Balloon Twitter Feed
Plugins marked inactive are either not installed or activated on your website. Enabled plugins will be blocked by default on the front-end of your website prior to obtaining user consent and rendered respectively based on consent.
If you wish to disable automatic script blocking for any of these plugins, you can do so by simply toggling the button against the respective plugin.
Note: Advanced script rendering and script blocking should be enabled to block the cookies automatically. For new users, it would be enabled by default. But existing users will have to manually enable it.
Enabling auto-script blocking (for existing users)
If you are an existing user of the plugin the advanced script rendering and script blocking will be in disabled mode. You will have to enable them by clicking on the link Enable.
The first link for advanced script rendering will redirect you to the Advanced tab in the Cookie law settings window.
Here you can enable the Advanced script rendering by clicking the toggle button beside it.
Click Update Settings to save the changes.
Comments (32)
Thomas
April 18, 2021
Hi, how can I sort the categories on privacy overview?
Mark
April 20, 2021
Hi Thomas,
Please refer the article here.
René
April 7, 2021
Hi. The button [cookie_settings] does not appear in the cookie bar. Why?
Mark
April 16, 2021
Hi Rene,
Please submit a ticket here with your site details.
Pasquale
March 25, 2021
Ciao, tra le impostazioni e le personalizzazioni dei pulsanti non trovo “Accetta e salva”, ovvero quello del pop up della panoramica sulla privacy. E’ normale? grazie
Mark
March 31, 2021
Hi Pasquale,
Save & Accept button does not support customization via the plugin settings. You can change the appearance directly via your site theme’s CSS. Here is a sample code to change color.
# wt-cli-privacy-save-btn {background-color: # 61a229;
color: #ffffff;
}
Bruce Rawles
March 22, 2021
I’m using version 2.0.1 of GDPR Cookie Consent on this work-in-progress site: https://viadnaremote.com/ … The popup mode works and I was able to use some CSS to make the full legal boilerplate fill the page, blocking all site content until a visitor pressed “ACCEPT”but the HTML tags (e.g. h3, h4, ul, etc.) don’t work. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.
Mark
March 31, 2021
Please submit a ticket here with full details.
Patrick
March 16, 2021
Hi,
I miss a checkbox for advertisement purposes within your predefined table under the category “necessary”.
All other cases have been mentioned by you, but there is no row like “cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement”.
Do I need to set it by myself with a duration of 11 months?
And do I need to show this table at all?
Thank you.
Patrick
Mark
March 17, 2021
Hi Patrick,
Try scanning again and if there is a cookie present in that category, the corresponding category cookie too will be found by scanner. If not, you may add it manualy.
Corinne Morvan
February 27, 2021
Hi,
The cookie bar appears on all other pages even after being accepted. It disappears with the scrolling of the page. I do not understand ???
Thanks for your help
Mark
March 4, 2021
Which version of the plugin are you using?
Tina
February 25, 2021
Where can i change the color and text of the accept & save button in the privacy overview?
Mark
March 4, 2021
Hi Tina,
Please mention which version of the plugin are you using.
Giuseppe
March 17, 2021
I can’t find where to change color of the “accept & save” button in the privacy overview. My version of plugin is 2.0.1
Mark
March 24, 2021
Hi Giuseppe,
Please use below code via your site theme CSS to modify the color. You can change the color hex value.
# wt-cli-privacy-save-btn {background-color: # 61a229;
color: #ffffff;
}
GUILLAUME CHIPIER
February 22, 2021
Bonjour je rencontre un problème avec le plugin, il marchait bien puis j’ai installer monster insight apparemment il marchait toujours et la barre de cookie ne s’affiche plus… j’essaye de le désinstaller en supprimant les tables et les fichiers via ftp mais il n’est pas dans le wp content / plugin pouvez vous me dire ou il se trouve dans wordpress pour que je le désinstalle correctement pour le réinstaller ensuite ? car quand je le réinstalle juste en ayant supprimer les tables les paramètres sont comme avant… ou me dire pourquoi la barre de cookie qui s’affichait jusqu’alors ne s’affiche plus ? merci d’avance pour vos éclaircissements et votre aide !
Mark
February 26, 2021
Hi Guillaume,
Since it is a site-specific issue, please submit a ticket here with site details.
Pier
February 22, 2021
Hi, I’m trying to access the CLI.consent.analytics from the free version 2.0.0, but CLI.consent is undefined
Mark
March 4, 2021
Hi Pier,
Kindly submit a ticket here briefing your full requirement.
H.A.
February 18, 2021
Hi,
I’m an existing user, and updated the plugin, but can’t get the cookie scanner to work. this shows:
| To scan cookies following tables should be present on your database, please check if tables do exist on your database.
{$wpdb->prefix}cli_cookie_scan
{$wpdb->prefix}cli_cookie_scan_url
{$wpdb->prefix}cli_cookie_scan_cookies
{$wpdb->prefix}cli_cookie_scan_categories
|
How do I fix this?
TIA
Mark
February 19, 2021
Hi,
The reason for the error is that some database tables required for the working of the cookie scanner feature wasn’t created upon installation or update.
To fix the issue, please go to WordPress > Plugins page, then deactivate and activate the CookieYes | GDPR Cookie Consent & Compliance Notice (CCPA Ready) plugin once.
Francesc
February 22, 2021
It has worked!!!
Thanks!
Ronen
January 16, 2021
This “documentation” is a little superficial. So here are the unanswered questions:
1. How can I determine what cookies are used on my WordPress-Site? By WordPress itself, but by other Plugins as well?
2. Where do I find their Cookie ID?
3. What units are used for the Cookie Duration? Please give some examples, and please also tell what values are best-practice and recommendable.
4. I assume, on the “Add Cookie” page, I use the term given in brackets for the fields “Cookie Type” and “Cookie Sensitivity”?
Please give some examples for the most obvious Cookies that come with WP, that come with your plugin, and the Google Analytics and Facebook.
Thank you.
Mark
January 25, 2021
Hi Ronen,
1. A site owner/developer should have some idea about the cookies used in the site. To know about generic cookies used by WordPress, you can always refer their articles.
2. Cookie ID should be the same as cookies name(eg; _ga)
3. You can enter as 1 year, 3 months etc. It is for displaying in the audit table and therefore you can enter as per your convenience.
4. Please refer below articles:
https://wordpress.org/support/article/cookies/
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/cookie-usage
https://www.facebook.com/business/help/471978536642445?id=1205376682832142
Phanie
April 15, 2021
You -can find a solution here :
https://cookiepedia.co.uk/
Taisa
December 30, 2020
Hi! And what happens with other plugins that doesn’t appear there? Is there a way to add them or to avoid the cookies from loading?
Mark
January 6, 2021
Hi Taisa,
You can use the filter here to add more to script blocker.
Stanislav
January 20, 2021
Can this only be done with paid version (Premium)?
Mark
January 25, 2021
Yes. It is a premium-only feature.
Sean Turtle
December 3, 2020
Hi. I’m trying to find details on how the plugin adheres to Accessibility guidelines. We’ve conducted an audit and one issue we’re facing is that once accepted, the consent button is still recognised by screen readers, whereas we need it to be hidden. Can you shed any light on that please?
Thanks
Mark
December 16, 2020
We have made several improvements in the plugin recently regarding accessibility. Please contact us via support forum on exactly what issue are you having with respect to it.