In some countries, website owners are required to show a cookie consent notice to the users. If the website owners don’t show the same, their website may not be accessible in these countries.
WordPress users can show a notification to the users in a text widget, but you cannot forcefully save the cookies on the device of the user situated in the country where the cookie law exists. Instead of a plain text message, you can show a banner with buttons to accept or reject the consent. Many users find the banner at the top of a page annoying. Thus, you can add a close icon at the top of a banner. When users click this icon, the banner will disappear.
WordPress users don’t have to learn web technologies to build such banners. The following WP plugin will let users add a cookie notice banner to their sites within a few minutes:
CookieYes
This plugin supports these three laws – GDPR, CCPA, and GDPR + CCPA, i.e. it can display the GDPR/CCPA notice to the users belonging to the country where the law is applicable. It can automatically hide the banner and accept the consent on the user’s behalf after a particular time or when the user scrolls down the page. You can set the time after which the banner should be hidden. You can configure GDCC to show the consent notice banner at the top of the page or in the footer or show the message in a popup, widget, or banner. In CY, you can set a custom description that the user must read before clicking the button and a title for the banner.
This WP extension lets you change the description and title color, and font. It can redirect the user to another page when the user clicks the button or closes the banner. You can set a custom text for the button and change the button’s color/size. CY can show these three buttons on the banner – accept all, accept, reject, and settings. It can also show a read more link below the message. CY can detect and block the extensions that make the page store cookies on the user’s PC. The blocked plugin will be enabled when the user clicks the accept/accept All button. CY ships with a policy generator utility that automatically creates a cookie policy page.
Complianz
Complianz is active on 400k sites. The above extension is used on a million sites. In the above plugin, you have to modify the settings as per your requirements. In Complianz, you have to run the wizard. The wizard will guide you through the banner setup process. It has three parts – General, Consent, and Documents. The first step is subdivided into four parts. In the first subpart, you should choose one of these laws – GDPR, PIPEDA, Privacy Act 1988, POPIA, LGPD, and CCPA.
In the second subpart, you must specify the page on your site where the cookie policy/disclaimer/privacy statement appears. In the third subpart, you must choose your country from the dropdown list Complianz displays, and in the last part, you’ll find paid form-related options. Like the first part of the wizard, the other two wizard parts have multiple sub-parts. The Consent part of the wizard boasts consent-related options. Some of the settings you will find here are custom description, enable cookieless tracking for specific services you’re using on your site, etc. The Documents part lets users enable the region redirection function.
Complianz can block the execution of code in specific JS files until the visitor clicks the accept button on the consent banner. It rates your cookie-related configuration on a scale of 0 to 100 and shows the same in its dashboard section. If the score is average or poor, you’ll find a “continue wizard” below the warnings/errors the plugin displays below the score. Complianz has more settings than its counterpart but configuring it takes a bit more time.
Real Cookie Banner
RCB is an excellent alternative to the first two plugins on our list. It scans all pages of a website to find cookie-enabled services you’re using on the site. You can cancel the scan if you want. Once RLCB has finished scanning the website, it will show the services it has found on the same page. You should select the service for which the extension should display a consent message to the visitors.
RLCB can detect bots and allow them to bypass the restrictions it puts on a website for users belonging to nations where cookie-related law is in practice. For example, the paid version of the plugin can block JS code execution until the visitor accepts the terms and conditions. The other options of RCB are located in these tabs – dashboard, settings, services, content blocker, consent, import/export, etc. You will find these tabs on the settings page of the plugin.
RCB lets you change the appearance of the banner with the WordPress live customizer tool. You’ll find more banner customization options in this extension than Complianz and Cookie Yes. For example, in RCLB, you can change the alignment of the text, set the hover effect for the text, change text color, set banner width/inner padding, enable a top border for the banner, etc.
GDPR Cookie Compliance
GDPRC enables you to add a custom logo to the consent banner. It supports these three logo positions – left, center, and right. GDPRCC supports two button types – rounded or square. A button can be at a fixed position in the banner or appear floating on the page. When the floating button is enabled, the extension will display the button when the user scrolls down the page. GDPRCC will open the “cookie settings” when the visitor clicks this button. You can configure it to hide the floating button on mobile devices. As in the above WP extensions, you can select the buttons that should appear on the banner.
These are the best WordPress cookie plugins you can use.
