# How often should you scan your website for cookies? - ConsentVigil

Source: https://consentvigil.com/blog/how-often-should-you-scan-your-website-for-cookies.html

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At minimum, scan after every site change that touches scripts, plugins, themes, or embeds, and on a recurring schedule even when nothing obvious changed. Most sites land on a weekly or monthly automated scan, because third-party tags can introduce new cookies without any action on your part.

## Changes that demand a fresh scan

Installing or updating a plugin, switching themes, adding a chat widget, embedding a video, or connecting a new marketing tool all change what your pages load. Any of these can silently add tracking cookies that were not there before, which makes your consent banner's cookie list stale.

## Why a schedule matters anyway

Third-party scripts are loaded from someone else's servers and can change their behavior after an update on their side. An embed that set no cookies in June might set several in September. Scheduled scans catch drift that no one on your team caused.

## What a good scan tells you

A useful report lists every cookie by name, domain, duration, and category, says which script set it, and flags anything new since the last scan. That output feeds directly into your cookie policy and banner configuration, keeping both accurate without manual detective work.

## Related reading

[How do I find out what cookies my website sets?](how-to-find-what-cookies-your-website-sets.md)[What are third-party cookies?](https://consentvigil.com/glossary/third-party-cookies.md)[Cookie consent for multi-site operators](https://consentvigil.com/use-cases/multi-site-operators.md)[Looking for a Cookiebot alternative?](https://consentvigil.com/alternatives/cookiebot-alternative.md)

## Frequently asked questions

### How often should you scan your website for cookies in normal conditions?

Monthly is a workable baseline for a stable site, with extra scans after launches, redesigns, and new vendor additions. The scan interval matters less than scanning after change, because new cookies almost always arrive riding on a release, a campaign, or a new tool someone added.

### What should a cookie scan be compared against?

Against your banner categories, your cookie disclosure list, and the previous scan. A scan on its own is just an inventory. The value is in the differences: cookies that appear in the scan but not in your disclosures, and cookies firing before consent that should be blocked.

### Why do scans keep finding cookies nobody added deliberately?

Because tools load other tools. Tag managers, embeds, chat widgets, and advertising pixels routinely set cookies of their own or invite partners that do. A scan finds the site as it actually behaves, which is why it disagrees with the tidy list in a policy document.

## Get a free consent audit of your website

[Free consent audit](mailto:hello@consentvigil.com?subject=Free%20consent%20audit%20-%20consentvigil.com)