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Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - UK
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Cookies - The Consumer View
October 21, 2005
Yesterday at a session on research and analytics at Search Engine Strategies Stockholm, the issue of cookies was hotly debated. A recent Jupiter Research study found that nearly 40% of US internet users delete their cookies on a monthly basis. This poses a serious concern to firms trying to accurately report on unique visitors, particularly for publishers who rely on advertising revenue. (I should mention at this point that Hitwise does not rely on cookies for our measurements. Click here to find out how we collect our data.)
I did some checking on Hitwise to assess the level of UK consumer interest in cookies. At first glance interest seemed very high. But of course, searches for 'cookies' could also be searches for recipes. I turned to the Hitwise UK Search Term Suggestion Tool and typed in "cookies" to find all the variations of ways that consumers search for that term.
Searches for 'delete cookies' and 'deleting cookies' rank 13 and 15 among the 718 search terms that include the keyword 'cookies'. Interestingly, the term 'enable cookies' ranked 4th and 'how to enable cookies' ranked 10th. Most searches for the word 'cookies' seem to be searches for recipes. As you can see from the list at the end of this post, there's a higher volume of searches for 'granny cookies', 'millies cookies' and 'chocolate chip cookies' than for 'delete cookies'.
Also, there has been no discernable increase in the volume of searches for 'delete cookies' or 'deleting cookies' since last year.
This is not to say that cookie deletion isn't a critical issue, but it may indicate that, in the UK at least, we have some time to both look for alternatives and to educate consumers. Here are some tips:
- Make sure you are using first party cookies.
- Offer incentives to the consumer to accept your cookie. For example, think of the value you receive as a consumer for accepting a cookie from Amazon or from you bank.
- Look for ways to encourage consumers to log in to your site each time they visit.
Top 15 UK search terms that include the keyword 'cookies' in the four weeks ending 15 October 2005
Posted by Heather Hopkins at 06:04 PM
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Comments
40% seems extremely high to me. I suspect that this is a reported number, and that we'd find that the actual number of people who delete their cookies monthly is far lower.
If you think about it, how many people do you know who even *know how* to delete their cookies? And since most people rely on cookies to help them log in to websites that they visit frequently, I just can't believe that they're going through all that hassle just for paranoia's sake.
Posted by Adria Kyne | October 25, 2005 11:15 PM
Hi there, it is interesting to read that up to 40% of users block cookies. Is it me, or does that seem very high???
Posted by Tim Cook | October 24, 2005 11:26 AM