By DoItYourself.com Staff
What are Cookies?Cookies are small pieces of information stored on the user's computer. The information in the cookie is sent from your web server to the user's browser, which accepts the cookie and stores it on the user's hard drive. The browser remembers which website each cookie came from. Whenever the user accesses a page on that website in the future, the browser automatically sends the contents of the cookie with the page request. The server doesn't need to specifically ask for the cookie.
Usage of Cookies
Cookie can be incredibly useful. Because websites are inherently "stateless," meaning that you have no way to track a user between page clicks, cookies provide a much-needed workaround. By placing a unique number into a user's cookie, you can program your website to identify the user between page clicks. You can also store information on users' preferences in cookies, allowing your site to personalize itself to your customers' needs and preferences.
Limitations of Cookies
Unfortunately, many users are suspicious of cookies. Many marketing companies place cookies on users' computer to track the sites that they visit, allowing them to build market statistics and even offer targeted banner ads to those users. Although the great majority of these companies can't actually attach any personal information, not even an e-mail address, to the user's path across the Web, a great deal of bad press has been attached to cookies, as well as a great deal of confusion.
As a result, many users prevent their browsers from accepting cookies. If your site depends on them, customers may not be able to use your site at all. There are so many sites out there that are so dependant on cookies that their checkout simply will not function without them. Of course, their "no cookies" page - the page that users are automatically directed to if their browser refused a cookie - will be their most visited page!
Use cookies to store user preferences to customize the site in ways that won't matter if the cookie isn't accepted. For data that is important to your site's functionality, you will have to take other steps, which are generally much more complicated. The only safe time to use cookies to store critical data is when you are building an intranet site where you can be assured that users will accept cookies from the server.
The Alternative to Cookies
If you made the decision to use cookies sparingly on your site - a decision that anybody would heartily endorse given the reluctance of many shoppers to accept cookies - then you may be wondering how you can program your website to recognize users as they move through your site.
The alternative to cookies works in a very similar fashion to cookies. Essentially, you have to make up a unique ID number for every visitor to your site. Rather than storing this number in a cookie, you encode it into every URL and form that your site uses, ensuring that the number will always be passed to the web server when pages are requested. The alternative misses one significant piece of functionality that cookies provide: the ability to persist information across several days' time by storing it on the user's computer. Any personalization that you want to do can't be applied unless users identify themselves by logging in.
Alternative Best Practices
Many websites adopt a mixed approach. They use a cookie to store the customer's user name or ID number on their local computer. When the customer visits the site the next time, the cookie is retrieved and their personalized settings are restored. If customers don't accept the cookie, they see the standard, non-personalized site until they identify themselves by logging in. After they are identified by the cookie or log in, customers are identified for the remainder of their visit by URL encoding, eliminating the need to store further cookies. Several major portal sites, including Yahoo.com and Exite.com, utilize this mixed technique for their personalized sites.
Because the alternatives to cookies are so much more complex, you may simply lack the time to implement a fully cookie-free web site. If you need to use cookies, make sure that your site is capable of testing whether or not cookies are being accepted by the user's browser. If they are not, your site should redirect users to a page that clearly explains why and how you are using cookies and gently pushes them to enable cookies for your website.
A Word of Caution
If your company is partnering with some of the marketing companies that place special cookies on users' systems, make sure to mention this to your users so they don't feel "blindsided" when additional cookies show up on their computer. You can also allow users to choose to accept cookies used by your site, but to refuse any cookies passed to their browser by external marketing companies with whom you have partnered.
If you are going to use cookies to customize your site, make sure that you have a page that clearly explains what you are using the cookie for and what information it sores. This will help allay any fears that your customers may have about accepting the cookie.
Like any other innovative technology, cookies also come with incredible usefulness as well as minor limitations. And like any other entrepreneur, you can adopt and appreciate the helpfulness of cookies while overcoming the limitations.
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