How Can I Tell If My Website Designer Implemented Important New Cookie Laws Functionality?

Is your dental website now compliant with Google Consent Mode V2?

In a recent blog we updated our readers about the relatively new Google Consent Mode V2 requirements and what it means for your dental website, Analytics and Ads. In a nutshell, if you haven’t implemented granular cookie control on your site i.e. where a user can accept, reject or choose which types of cookies they will accept, then Google will likely suspend your analytics and ads account in the near future.

You can read more about the requirements and the penalties resulting from failure to comply at this link – Google Consent Mode For Dentists.

Having gained an understanding of these new and important requirements, how then can you check to make sure that your dental website designer or digital marketer has implemented the correct controls on your behalf? We know of a few examples where dentists have been told that their websites are compliant because they “have a cookie banner”, however the old style banners which were essentially just advisory and didn’t selectively block cookies, are now completely insufficient. What’s more, if you try to rely on that, expect to have your Google Ads and Analytics accounts suspended, assuming you use them.

There are three main things to check as follows.

Has the cookies banner on your website changed?

The new cookie banners with granular control can look very similar to the old-style versions. However, if you look closely you will see additional control options where users can select the types of cookies they allow, e.g. all cookies, functional cookies, advertising cookies etc. These usually appear as small toggle on the banner itself and if they aren’t there, then your cookies functionality hasn’t been updated and you aren’t in compliance.

However, even if you see what looks like a new cookie banner, it really doesn’t mean that it’s actually working. Set up and testing of the new system is quite complex and easy to get wrong, so you should also check using the following methods too.

Checking in the Google Ads control panel

If Google Consent Mode V2 is working, you can check this in your Google Ads control panel, assuming you use ads of course. If you navigate to the Tools and Setting section and then on to the Conversions tracking, you should see the following when you hover over the conversions status element.

Please note that it can take several days following implementation for this notification to appear.

Checking in Google Analytics

You can also check the status of consent mode in Google Analytics. This is probably where most website owners will look first as the use of analytics is more widespread than the use of ads.

To check in Analytics, navigate to the admin section and then look for Data Streams. Select the correct stream and you should see an information tab labelled Consent Settings. Opening this tab should show the following if Consent Mode V2 is active and working. If you don’t see this a few days after implementation, then the new cookie system likely isn’t working and you need to advise your designer/developer.

So there you have three ways to check if your dental web designer has implemented Google Consent Mode V2 correctly on your behalf. For the adventurous, you can also fire up Google Tag Assistant and view the data layer information as tags are actually fired on your website, although this is beyond the scope of this short discussion here. It is however the tool we use to make sure each implementation is working correctly for our own clients.

Summary

We’ve explained the importance of Google Consent Mode V2 and why it’s essential if you use analytics and/or ads for your marketing and website data acquisition. You now also have three reasonably straighforward ways to check if it’s implemented and working on your own website.

If you need assistance with this or indeed any other aspect of web design and development for dentists, please get in touch with the team at Dental Media on 01332 672548 or via the main website contact form.