Cookies

What is a Cookie?

A cookie is a small text file that resides on your computer. Cookies are used to remember your settings when you revisit a website and to identify how visitors navigate the site. Cookies provide valuable information to website owners to adapt and make changes to the site in order to improve the user experience.

Why we use cookies

In common with many websites we use a number of different types of cookies to help improve your experience of using our website, specifically by:

  • Remembering preferences you have previously indicated to us.
  • Ensuring we know when you are logged in and logging you out automatically after a period of time to protect you against misuse.
  • Understanding how many people have visited our website, the search terms they are using and the journeys they make in order to locate content.

We do not use the information captured for any other purpose.

Types of cookies

Session cookies

These are stored on a temporary basis and usually deleted when you close your browser. These are used primarily to help you complete tasks online, for example remembering your details whilst completing an online form to save you re-entering; or remembering search terms you have recently used.

Persistent cookies

These are stored for a fixed period of time, generally so the website knows that you have visited previously and any preferences you might have indicated at that time. These are particularly used in the collection of visitor statistics.

These cookies are usually set in one of two ways:

  • First party cookies – These are set directly by the website you are visiting and the information is only used by that website.
  • Third party cookies – These are set by a different website/organisation to the one you are currently using and the data may be shared.

Categories of cookie used on this website

Cookies fall into broad categories depending on their intended use:

Strictly necessary cookies: Enable you to move around the website and use its core features.

Performance cookies: Collect information about how you use the website, are anonymised when aggregated and are only used to help improve the website’s performance.

Functionality cookies: Allow the website to remember choices you’ve made and provide a more enhanced, personalised service. Not used to track your activities on other websites.

Targeting/tracking cookies: Used to deliver more relevant advertising. Usually placed by third party agencies and the information gathered may be shared with other organisations.

Currently all cookies on discovergainsborough.com fall into one of the first three categories.

  • Strictly necessary cookies: Log-in and form submission
  • Performance cookies: Visitor metrics across the website
  • Functionality cookies: User preferences and customer satisfaction and feedback

For more information about cookies in general please visit All About Cookies.

How do I control what cookies are used?

When you enter our site for the first time you will be asked whether you wish to use cookies or not. You can choose to accept or decline cookies.

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. However this may prevent you from taking full advantage of our website. To find out exactly how you can manage cookies on your computer please visit the All About Cookies website.

Cookies used on our website(s)

First party cookies

  • eucookielaw – This cookie is set to record your acceptance of cookies. This cookie expires in 1 year.
  • monsido – We use the tools at monsido.com to help us find, identify and correct spelling errors and improve the quality of this website to make it easier to find and use. This cookie expires in one calendar month.
  • _gaGoogle Analytics* cookie, this enables us to analyse traffic to the website in order to make improvements and monitor usage, the cookie contains no identifiable information. This cookie expires in 2 years.
  • _gat and/or _gat_UA-xxxxxxxx-x (where each x is a number) – Google Analytics* Cookie, this enables us to analyse traffic to the website in order to make improvements and monitor usage, the cookie contains no identifiable information. This cookie expires in 1 minute.
  • _gid Google Analytics* Cookie, this enables us to analyse traffic to the website in order to make improvements and monitor usage, the cookie contains no identifiable information. This cookie expires in 24 hours.
  • tk_qs – WordPress cookie, this cookie collect metrics about the users use of the website. The cookie collects information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. This cookie expires in 1 year.
  • tk_tc – WordPress cookie, this cookie collect metrics about the users use of the website. The cookie collects information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. This cookie expires at the end of the session.
  • wordpress_test_cookie – WordPress cookie, this cookie checks if cookies are enabled in your browser to provide appropriate user experience. This cookie expires at the end of the session.
  • wordpress_logged_in_{random} – WordPress cookie, this cookie is set when you are logged into this site. This cookie expires at the end of the session.
  • wordpress_sec_{random} – WordPress cookies, these cookies are set when you are logged into this site. These cookies expire at the end of the session.
  • wfwaf-authcookie-{random} – Wordfence security cookie, this cookie is set when you first login to this site. This cookie expires in 12 hours.
  • wp-settings-1, wp-settings-time-1 – WordPress management cookies to maintain user settings, preferences and enable core site functionality. These cookies expire in 1 year.
  • __cfduidCloudflare security cookie, This cookie is used to override any security restrictions based on the IP address the visitor is coming from. For example, if the visitor is in a coffee shop where there are a bunch of infected machines, but the visitor’s machine is known trusted, then the cookie can override the security setting. This cookie expires in 1 year.

Third party cookies

  • ASP.NET_SessionId set by www.west-lindsey.gov.uk – A session cookie to identify you as a unique user to West Lindsey District Council – this is only set on the ‘Events’ page. This cookie expires when you close your browser.

*Google Analytics opt out
You can opt-out from Google Analytics tracking by following the instructions on this link: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.