Cookie Policy
Last updated: 07 August 2026
Information about our use of cookies
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer where permitted or if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.
We use the following cookies:
Strictly necessary cookies
These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that help keep our website secure, remember your cookie preferences, support temporary website sessions, or enable core website functionality.
Analytical/performance cookies.
They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
Functionality cookies
These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region). We do not currently use functionality cookies.
Targeting cookies
These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests.
We may share information with third parties for this purpose.
The table below explains the cookies we use and why. Non-essential cookies are only used where you give consent through our cookie banner.
Strictly necessary cookies
| Cookie name or title | Purpose | More information |
| cookieyes-consent / cookieyes-* | Used by CookieYes to store and manage cookie consent preferences. | Duration: up to 1 year. |
| __cf_bm | Used by Cloudflare to support bot management and help protect the website from automated or suspicious traffic. | Duration: 1 hour. |
| cp_challenge | Used by a GoDaddy hosting plugin to help prevent brute force login attempts to WordPress. | Duration: session |
| wpEmojiSettingsSupports | Used by WordPress to check whether the browser can display emojis correctly. | Duration: session. |
Analytical/performance cookies
| Cookie name or title | Purpose | More information |
| _ga | Used by Google Analytics to distinguish users and collect website usage information. | Duration: 1 year 1 month 4 days. |
| _ga_* | Used by Google Analytics to store and count page views. | Duration: 1 year 1 month 4 days. |
| _clck | Used by Microsoft Clarity to retain the browser’s Clarity user ID and settings for the website. | Duration: 1 year. |
| _clsk | Used by Microsoft Clarity to store and consolidate page views into a single session recording. | Duration: 1 day. |
| MR | Used by Microsoft/Bing to collect user information for analytics purposes. | Duration: 7 days. |
| SM | Used by Microsoft Clarity to synchronise Microsoft user identifiers across Microsoft domains. | Duration: session. |
| _tccl_visitor | Used by GoDaddy to collect aggregated, anonymised data to improve site performance. | Duration: 1 year. |
| _tccl_visit | Used by GoDaddy to collect aggregated, anonymised data to improve site performance. | Duration: 1 hour. |
| _scc_session | Used by GoDaddy as part of its Real User Metrics programme to help measure website performance and user experience. | Duration: 20 minutes |
Targeting / advertising cookies
| Cookie name or title | Purpose | More information |
| _gcl_au | Used by Google Tag Manager / Google Ads to measure advertising effectiveness. | Duration: 3 months. |
| test_cookie | Used by DoubleClick / Google to check whether the browser supports cookies. | Duration: 15 minutes. |
| MUID | Used by Microsoft/Bing to recognise unique web browsers and support advertising, analytics and other operations. | Duration: 1 year 24 days. |
| ANONCHK | Used by Microsoft/Bing to store session information and help verify ad clicks. | Duration: around 11 minutes. |
| SRM_B | Used by Microsoft Advertising as a unique ID for visitors. | Duration: 1 year 24 days. |
| bcookie | Used by LinkedIn to recognise browser IDs from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags. | Duration: 1 year. |
| li_gc | Used by LinkedIn to store visitor consent for non-essential LinkedIn cookies. | Duration: 6 months. |
| lidc | Used by LinkedIn to support data centre selection. | Duration: 1 day. |
| _rdt_uuid | Used by Reddit to recognise a browser, measure and attribute advertising activity, and help show more relevant advertising. | Duration: 3 months. |
Embedded media cookies
| Cookie name or title | Purpose | More information |
| VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATA | Used by YouTube to store the user’s cookie consent state for the current domain. | Duration: 6 months. |
| YSC | Used by YouTube to track views of embedded videos. | Duration: session. |
| VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | Used by YouTube to measure bandwidth and determine which player interface to show. | Duration: 6 months. |
| __Secure-YNID | Used by YouTube to support user security and prevent fraud. | Duration: 6 months. |
| __Secure-ROLLOUT_TOKEN | Used by YouTube to manage feature rollouts and experimentation. | Duration: 6 months. |
| __Secure-YEC | Used by YouTube/Google to support security, detect spam, fraud and abuse, and help measure interaction with YouTube services. | Duration: up to 13 months. |
| ytidb::LAST_RESULT_ENTRY_KEY | Used by YouTube to store the last search result entry clicked by the user. | Duration: does not expire. |
Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control and we cannot accept any liability for the third party’s compliance with its legal obligations. These cookies may include strictly necessary, analytical/performance, targeting/advertising or embedded media cookies, depending on the provider and the service used.
Third-party cookies on our site may be set by providers including Google, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Ads, DoubleClick, Microsoft Clarity, Microsoft/Bing, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Cloudflare, GoDaddy and CookieYes.
Advertising cookies can be de-activated by rejecting advertising cookies through our cookie banner or by changing your cookie preferences using the cookie settings option on our website.
You block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.
Cookie expiry periods vary depending on the cookie and provider. The usual expiry period for each cookie is shown in the table above.
