30% off forever with FOUNDER30 →
Lienks
Sign in

Tracking modes

The tracking mode decides how Lienks recognises returning visitors. You choose it per site.

The three modes

  • Minimal – Pageviews without recognising returning visitors. Every pageview is evaluated on its own, there is no visitor identifier.
  • Cookieless – The recommended default. Visitors are recognised within a day using a pseudonymous identifier. No cookie is set, and the identifier changes daily.
  • Cookie – After consent, Lienks recognises visitors for up to 24 hours with a first-party cookie. Without consent, it behaves like Cookieless.

Which mode should I choose?

  • Cookieless suits most websites. It is the default.
  • Choose Minimal if you don’t want any visitor identifier. The price: no Unique Visitors, Sessions or Bounce Rate (see below).
  • Choose Cookie if you want more accurate recognition within a day and already use a consent solution (Consent).

It’s a trade-off between accuracy and footprint, not a ladder where each mode is better than the last.

How it works

In Cookieless mode, the identifier is created on the server as a hash over the site, the IP address and the user agent, using a key that changes daily (HMAC). The IP address is only held in memory for this, briefly, and is not stored. At midnight UTC the identifier changes automatically, so the same visitor can’t be recognised across days.

In Cookie mode, the script sets the cookie _lienks_vid: first-party, only on your domain, path=/, SameSite=Lax, Secure on https only, fixed at 24 hours and not renewed. The server hashes the value and doesn’t store the raw value. The cookie is only used if the visitor has consented (see Consent). An existing cookie alone never counts as consent.

What changes in your numbers

  • Minimal: Unique Visitors, Sessions and Bounce Rate aren’t available, because there is no visitor identifier. Pageviews and all other breakdowns work as usual.
  • Cookieless and Cookie: Unique Visitors, Sessions and Bounce Rate are calculated from the identifier.
  • With Cookieless, figures around midnight UTC can differ slightly, because the identifier changes then.
  • The mode doesn’t change your event allowance: every event counts the same.

Change the mode

Change it in the site settings, on the Tracking Mode card. It applies from the next event, and you don’t need to change the snippet.

If you switch away from Cookie, the script removes an existing cookie once the server’s reply confirms the new mode. If you switch to Cookie, a cookie is never created on suspicion: only after the mode is confirmed and the visitor has consented.

Limitations

  • The 24 hours of the cookie are fixed and can’t be changed. There are no long-term visitor profiles, neither with the cookie nor with Cookieless.
  • Lienks doesn’t use browser fingerprinting.
  • The number of unique visitors is an approximation in every analytics tool, for example when people use several devices or share a network.

Next steps

This page describes the technical operation of Lienks and does not constitute legal advice. Other services on your website may create additional requirements.