What Cookies Are (In Plain English)
If you’re picturing chocolate chip, we don’t blame you — but these cookies are the digital kind. A cookie is a tiny file that a website stores on your phone, tablet, or computer when you visit. It helps the site remember things about your visit, like your preferences or the fact that you’ve already seen our cookie notice (very meta, we know). Cookies are completely standard across the web, and they’re nothing to be afraid of — but you deserve to know exactly what we use and why.
The Cookies We Use
We keep things simple and only use cookies we actually need. Strictly necessary cookies make the site work — they remember your cookie consent choice and keep our security features running. Without these, bits of the site would break, so they’re always on. Then we use analytics cookies, which tell us in aggregate how visitors use CookBookBite: which recipes get the most visits, how long people stay, and whether everyone’s browsing on mobile (spoiler: you are). This data is anonymised — we see trends, never individuals — and it genuinely helps us decide what to cook next.
Advertising Cookies
Because quality butter isn’t free, we show ads through Google AdSense, and Google uses advertising cookies to make those ads relevant to you. These cookies may recognise your browsing across sites to build a picture of your interests — for example, showing you stand mixer ads after you’ve been reading our baking recipes (we see you). Google’s use of advertising cookies is governed by Google’s own privacy policies rather than ours, and you can opt out of personalised advertising at any time through your Google ad settings.
Managing Your Cookies
You’re in control here. When you first visit CookBookBite, our cookie banner lets you accept or manage cookies — and you can change your mind at any point by clearing your browser cookies, which brings the banner back. Every major browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge) also lets you block or delete cookies in its settings, and browsing in private or incognito mode stops most cookies being stored at all. Just know that blocking strictly necessary cookies may make parts of the site misbehave — a bit like a soufflé without eggs.
Questions About Cookies
If anything about our cookie use puzzles you, please get in touch through our Contact Us page — we read every message and we’ll happily explain. We may update this policy as our cookie use evolves, and the latest version will always live right here. Now, about those chocolate chip cookies — we’ve got a recipe for those too.