What is the nlbi_* cookie?
Incapsula DDoS Protection and Web Application Firewall: Load balancing cookie. To ensure requests by a client are sent to the same origin server.
Our October 2026 scan found it on 22 sites (1% of the 2,450 we scanned), set before any consent.
- Purpose
- Functional
- Belongs to
- Imperva
- Set as
- First-party on 95% of sites, third-party on 5%
- Typical lifetime
- Session (vendor says: session)
- Name
- A family of cookies: the part after nlbi_ varies by site or account.
Sites that set nlbi_* before consent
The highest-ranked 22 of 22 sites.
- digicert.com1 tracking company
- dnsmadeeasy.com1 tracking company
- apa.org4 tracking companies
- elconfidencial.com6 tracking companies
- acs.org1 tracking company
- proofpoint.com3 tracking companies
- msu.edu10 tracking companies
- accor.com2 tracking companies
- aarp.org30 tracking companies
- bt.com3 tracking companies
Show 12 more sites
- thawte.com4 tracking companies
- familysearch.org0 tracking companies
- rapidssl.com2 tracking companies
- cox.net0 tracking companies
- sonicwall.com8 tracking companies
- caissedesdepots.fr0 tracking companies
- aaa.com1 tracking company
- mo.gov2 tracking companies
- nj.gov4 tracking companies
- powerschool.com1 tracking company
- channelnewsasia.com24 tracking companies
- gamestop.com6 tracking companies
How to stop it
Declining non-essential cookies in a site's consent banner should stop nlbi_* 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.