What is the _gat* cookie?
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests when using Google Tag Manager.
Our October 2026 scan found it on 108 sites (4% of the 2,450 we scanned), set before any consent.
- Purpose
- Analytics
- Belongs to
- Google Analytics
- Set as
- First-party (under the site's own domain)
- Typical lifetime
- Under a day (vendor says: 1 minute)
- Name
- A family of cookies: the part after _gat varies by site or account.
Sites that set _gat* before consent
The highest-ranked 30 of 108 sites.
- pki.goog1 tracking company
- scorecardresearch.com1 tracking company
- who.int3 tracking companies
- harvard.edu4 tracking companies
- media.net6 tracking companies
- fandom.com3 tracking companies
- pushy.io2 tracking companies
- usda.gov4 tracking companies
- seedtag.com4 tracking companies
- infobae.com6 tracking companies
Show 20 more sites
- hotpepper.jp13 tracking companies
- postgresql.org1 tracking company
- jalan.net27 tracking companies
- mbga.jp2 tracking companies
- carsensor.net31 tracking companies
- jutarnji.hr10 tracking companies
- admanmedia.com1 tracking company
- utorrent.com3 tracking companies
- indianrail.gov.in10 tracking companies
- therapservices.net5 tracking companies
- chordtela.com34 tracking companies
- tupi.fm7 tracking companies
- mechacomic.jp13 tracking companies
- packzy.com2 tracking companies
- staseraintv.com3 tracking companies
- waze.com1 tracking company
- ixl.com1 tracking company
- uchicago.edu5 tracking companies
- dantri.com.vn4 tracking companies
- wikihow.com1 tracking company
Related cookies
Other cookies from Google Analytics.
- _ga700 sites
- _ga_*685 sites
- _gid185 sites
- _gat_gtag_*55 sites
- FPID29 sites
How to stop it
Declining non-essential cookies in a site's consent banner should stop _gat* being set on later visits. Blocking third-party cookies in your browser settings stops the third-party kind everywhere, and clearing cookies for a site removes any it already set.
Description from the Open Cookie Database (Apache 2.0).
Understanding this page
- How cookie lifetimes work, and why a 13-month _ga matters
What a cookie's "expires" field actually controls, why Google Analytics ships a 2-year default that many sites cut down to 13 months, and how Safari's 7-day cap on script-set cookies changes the picture.
- First-party vs third-party cookies (and why "first-party" still tracks you)
What the distinction actually means technically, why browsers only block one of the two, and how CNAME cloaking, server-side tagging and cookies like _ga let sites keep tracking under their own domain.
- How to block or limit trackers
Browser privacy settings, content blockers, Global Privacy Control and clearing cookies compared honestly — what each one actually stops, what it doesn't, and what it costs you in return.