What is the _gat_gtag_* cookie?
Used to set and get tracking data.
Our October 2026 scan found it on 55 sites (2% 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 hour)
- Name
- A family of cookies: the part after _gat_gtag_ varies by site or account.
Sites that set _gat_gtag_* before consent
The highest-ranked 30 of 55 sites.
- ipify.org4 tracking companies
- mediafire.com5 tracking companies
- liftoff.io6 tracking companies
- unpkg.com1 tracking company
- thenai.org2 tracking companies
- leiniao.com1 tracking company
- conviva.com3 tracking companies
- elmundo.es20 tracking companies
- alphonso.tv6 tracking companies
- marca.com9 tracking companies
Show 20 more sites
- yale.edu3 tracking companies
- grow.google2 tracking companies
- weathernews.jp7 tracking companies
- gcash.com5 tracking companies
- utorrent.com3 tracking companies
- indianrail.gov.in10 tracking companies
- czbooks.net2 tracking companies
- animanch.com22 tracking companies
- ecnavi.jp7 tracking companies
- indown.io3 tracking companies
- amocrm.ru6 tracking companies
- scryfall.com2 tracking companies
- loteriasdominicanas.com14 tracking companies
- moviezwap.taxi1 tracking company
- nic.io1 tracking company
- aniview.com3 tracking companies
- itu.int4 tracking companies
- energy.gov4 tracking companies
- perl.org2 tracking companies
- dhs.gov5 tracking companies
Related cookies
Other cookies from Google Analytics.
How to stop it
Declining non-essential cookies in a site's consent banner should stop _gat_gtag_* 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.