Overcoming Cookie Problems

Sometimes, when you are using a website, it fails to work as you'd expect it to. Maybe a shopping cart fails to retain its contents. Or you're logging into a password protected site and it won't let you in even though you know that you've supplied the correct information.

And you want to hurl a brick at the webmaster's head, right?

Well it's just possible that your web browser is blocking "cookies" from that website. Cookies?

A cookie is a tiny bit of text that the website places on your hard disk. It enables the web server to "remember" who you are as you move from page to page. So if you've logged into a site, and you move to another page, the server "remembers" that you've already logged in.

How do you know if your web browser is blocking cookies?

(Note: the instructions on this page assume that you are using Internet Explorer as your browser. Other browsers, such as Firefox or Opera will have slightly different instructions. But the principles are the same. I've put some brief instructions for Firefox users here)

I'll use as an example the login process for my affiliates on my Webmasters Cheat Kit site. So I've logged in correctly with my ClickBank ID and my password - and this is what I get:

Now I look at the "status bar" - right at the bottom of the browser window, and on the right-hand side I see this little "no entry" symbol:

That symbol shows me that my web browser is blocking cookies from the website www.webmasterscheatkit.com

How can you set your browser to allow cookies from this website?

Follow this procedure:

1) Double-click on the little red symbol. This pops up a "Privacy Report" like this:

2) Click on one of the sites listed (if there's more than one, make sure it's the one you want to unblock cookies from) and click on the "Summary" button. You'll then get this screen:

3) If the website has a privacy policy, it will be displayed in this screen. But that's not always very important. What you need to do now is to click in the little circle (the "radio button") to the left of where it says "Always allow this site to use cookies" and then click "OK".

4) The Privacy Report window will then appear again. Click on the "Close" button.

5) Go back to where you were trying to log in before (or where the system seemed to let you down) and try again. If it works OK, then put down that brick you were going to chuck at the webmaster's head :-))

6) If it still doesn't work, and the little red symbol no longer appears, then pick up that brick again!! There's a different problem with the website.

I hope this has helped.

Ian Traynor
Professional Webmaster

If you needed help with this topic, then maybe you need to enrol as a Pupil at my Newbies School of Internet Marketing?