What is Cookie Expiration?

When one of your website visitors clicks on your affiliate link to learn more about the specific product you recommended, a cookie is saved on their computer. This small file includes your unique affiliate ID, ensuring that you get a commission if the visitor makes a purchase.

Cookie Expiration refers to the lifespan of a cookie, or how long that cookie stays on their browser. When a cookie is set, an expiry date is often specified. This is the date and time after which the cookie will cease to exist. As long as that cookie is still on the user’s browser when they ultimately do finalize a purchase, you’ll get credit as an affiliate. Cookies will be deleted automatically once they’ve reached the expiration date.

When Do Cookies Expire?

Cookies typically expire somewhere between 30 and 90 days. Though, some companies do implement shorter cookie expiration dates. It’s also important to note that cookies can be deleted manually by the user or through third-party security programs.

If an expiry date isn’t provided within the cookie, it will create a ‘session cookie’, which is not stored long term and is deleted when the user closes their browser.

The cookie expiration time is very important. Not everyone is going to make a purchase right away. The cookie ensures that you get credit, even if the user doesn’t use your affiliate link to get back to the merchant’s site.

Why Is Expiration Important

The cookie expiration date has the purpose of removing old or irrelevant data from the user’s browser. It may also be used as a means of logging out inactive users from a website after a set period of time.

The expiry can be an important security feature, especially on sites that handle sensitive or personal information. You will see this often on sites such as banks, or medical websites where sensitive data is stored in a customer account. You may also see this on sites with very high traffic as a means of managing demand.

It’s also really important to know that using cookies involves certain privacy and security considerations, and these vary in different countries. In many places, the law requires websites to obtain user consent before setting cookies. The clearest example of this is in Europe with the GDPR compliance pop-ups requesting user consent on every website to explain which vendors want to use cookies, and requiring consent for each to do so.