This Cookie Policy explains which cookies IdealCoffeeShop.com sets, what each group is for, and how to turn them off. It should be read alongside our Privacy Policy, which covers personal data more broadly.
Last updated: 16 August 2026
What Cookies Are
A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to store on your computer, tablet or phone. On a later request the browser sends it back, which is how a site can recognize a returning session, remember a preference or count a visit. Some cookies are deleted when you close the browser, which are called session cookies. Others stay for a set period, which are called persistent cookies. This policy also covers similar technologies such as local storage, which does much the same job by a different mechanism.
The Cookies This Site Actually Uses
Essential Cookies
These are needed for the website to work and to stay available. They include the security and bot management cookies set by our content delivery network, which sits in front of the site and filters malicious traffic, and cookies that support page caching so pages load quickly. WordPress, the publishing platform behind this site, sets session cookies for logged in administrators. It does not set login cookies for ordinary readers.
Essential cookies do not track you across other websites and are not used for advertising. Without them the site cannot reliably distinguish a reader from an automated attack.
WooCommerce Session Cookies
The product catalog on this site runs on WooCommerce, which is the software that organizes the coffee makers, espresso machines, brewers and accessories into categories. WooCommerce can set a session or cart cookie so that state is kept as you move between pages. These cookies hold an identifier for the session rather than anything about you personally, and they expire on their own. We do not sell coffee equipment ourselves; product links take you out to a retailer, which sets its own cookies under its own policy.
Analytics Cookies
We run a first party analytics tracker so we can see which pages are read, which are ignored and which links get clicked. It records page views, the page that referred you, device and browser type, approximate location derived from your IP address, and clicks on outbound product links. It is operated for this publisher rather than by an advertising network, the data is looked at in aggregate, and it is not used to build an advertising profile or sold to anyone.
Analytics is the one group here that is genuinely optional. Blocking it costs you nothing on the page and simply means your visit is not counted.
What We Do Not Run
We do not run Google Analytics, Google AdSense or any third party advertising network on this website, and there are no display advertising or retargeting cookies here. The site is funded by affiliate commissions instead, which is explained on our affiliate disclosure page.
Cookies Set After You Leave
When you follow a product link, you land on the retailer’s website, most often Amazon. That retailer sets its own cookies on its own domain to attribute any purchase to the site that referred you. Those cookies are outside our control and are governed by the retailer’s cookie and privacy policies. We can see that a click happened; we cannot read anything the retailer stores on your device.
How to Disable Cookies
Every current browser lets you block cookies, delete cookies already stored, block third party cookies only, or clear everything when you close the window. Private or incognito browsing discards cookies at the end of the session. Browser extensions and network level blockers can also stop analytics requests before they are made.
What Happens If You Disable Them
Blocking analytics cookies has no effect on how the site behaves. You will read exactly the same pages; we simply lose the record of the visit, which over time makes it harder for us to tell which coffee equipment pages need rewriting.
Blocking the session and essential cookies is a different matter. WooCommerce may stop remembering state as you move between category and product pages, and features that rely on a session may behave inconsistently. Blocking the security cookies set by our content delivery network can cause repeated challenge pages, slow loading or, in some configurations, a refusal to serve the site at all, because the network cannot tell your browser apart from automated traffic. If pages stop loading properly after you change a cookie setting, that is usually the cause.
Clearing cookies also clears any retailer referral record already stored, which affects the retailer’s attribution rather than anything on this site.
Do Not Track
There is still no agreed industry standard for how a website should answer a browser Do Not Track header, so we do not respond to one. Browser cookie settings are the reliable control, and they work regardless of what any site chooses to honor.
Changes to This Policy
If we add or remove software that sets cookies, this page is updated to match, with a new last updated date at the top. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the current version.
Contact
Questions about cookies on this site go to [email protected], or use the form on our contact page.