Paste your address. We load your site as a new EU visitor, click “Reject” and “Accept” on your own banner, and read the consent signals your Google tags send each time.
Google tags report consent inside every request they send, in URL parameters called gcs and gcd. The checker records those requests in three moments, each as a brand-new visitor, and decodes the four Consent Mode v2 signals. Here is what a correct setup reports for visitors in the EEA and UK:
| Signal | What it controls | Before a choice | After “Reject” | After “Accept” |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ad_storageAd cookies | Ad cookies, such as Google Ads click and conversion cookies. | denied | denied | granted |
analytics_storageAnalytics cookies | Analytics cookies, such as Google Analytics’ _ga. | denied | denied | granted |
ad_user_dataAd data to Google | Sending the visitor’s data to Google for advertising. | denied | denied | granted |
ad_personalizationPersonalised ads | Using the data for personalised ads and remarketing. | denied | denied | granted |
Neither mode is wrong. Advanced mode gives Google more to model with; basic mode sends nothing until people agree. Some EU regulators question any data sent without consent, so choose with whoever owns privacy.
The report shows these results in its Google Consent Mode panel, with the requests behind them. The panel explains your setup; it doesn’t change your grade.
Your Google tags send data without consent signals. Since March 2024 Google needs them before it uses data from visitors in the EEA for audiences, remarketing and conversion modelling.
Fix: Switch on Consent Mode v2 in your consent tool, or add a gtag “consent default” with every signal denied before your Google tag.
Your tags send the cookie signals but not ad_user_data and ad_personalization. Without them Google Ads can’t use your EEA visitors for remarketing and audiences.
Fix: Update your consent tool or Tag Manager template to Consent Mode v2 and map all four signals.
Before anyone chose, your Google tags reported consent as given. That is tracking before consent, the most common reason for cookie fines.
Fix: Set every default to denied for EU and UK visitors, and switch to granted only after “Accept”.
Your Google tag sent data before your consent defaults were set, so the first requests carried no consent choice at all.
Fix: Put the gtag “consent default” command above your Google tag, or fire it with your tag manager’s Consent Initialization trigger.
After we clicked Reject, your Google tags still reported consent as given.
Fix: Make the reject button send a Consent Mode update with all four signals denied.
Visitors who accept are still treated as refused, so you lose the analytics and conversions they agreed to.
Fix: Make the accept button send gtag(“consent”, “update”, …) with the signals granted.
Your Google tag is on the page but sent nothing after we accepted. Check that your tags fire once consent is given.
In advanced mode Google receives pings without cookies and models the missing data. Some EU regulators consider any data sent without consent risky, so decide this with whoever owns privacy.
The cautious setup. Google models conversions with less detail than in advanced mode.
Google’s EU user consent policy covers the EEA, the UK and Switzerland: visitors there have to be asked before their data is used for personalised ads. For visitors in the EEA, Google has also needed thead_user_data and ad_personalization signals since March 2024 before it uses their data for audiences, remarketing and conversion measurement. When they’re missing, those visitors quietly drop out of your campaigns. Google says it doesn’t expect these signals for UK or Swiss visitors.
It works the other way too: a tag that reports “granted” before anyone chose, or keeps reporting it after “Reject”, is tracking without consent. That’s the finding behind the largest cookie fines.
Go to the Network tab, tick “Preserve log”, and load your site without touching the banner.
Click a request to google-analytics.com/g/collect (or /ccm/collect, or a Google Ads request) and look at its URL parameters.
G100 means both storage signals are denied, G111 both granted, G101 analytics only, G110 ads only. No gcs at all means Consent Mode isn’t running on that tag.
Before a choice and after “Reject” you want G100. After “Accept” in a fresh private window, you want G111.
In basic mode, Google tags don’t load until the visitor accepts, so nothing reaches Google before a choice. In advanced mode, tags load straight away with consent set to “denied” and send cookieless pings that Google uses to model the missing data.
If you use Google Analytics data for Google Ads (audiences, remarketing or conversions) and have visitors from the EEA, yes: without the v2 signals, those visitors drop out of those features. Google says it doesn’t expect the signals for UK or Swiss visitors, but UK law still requires consent before non-essential cookies. Since June 2026 Google Analytics also relies on Consent Mode as the main control for how its data can be used for ads.
No. Consent Mode passes your visitors’ choices on to Google. Your banner still has to ask properly, refusing has to be as easy as accepting, and tags from other vendors still need to wait for consent.
No. If your Google tags receive consent as a TCF string, the panel says so and doesn’t report Consent Mode as missing.
Google documents that consent is sent in parameters such as gcs and gcd, and what gcs covers. The letter codes inside gcd are decoded from independent research, so untick treats any unknown value as unreadable rather than as a problem.
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