What’s tracking my visitors on my site?
It’s a fair question to want answered plainly, and it has two halves: the things that came with you when your site moved, and the one thing bernard runs for you if you asked it to.
The prompt
“Go through my site and tell me everything that’s running on it that watches or counts my visitors - what each one is, what it’s for, and where it came from. Don’t change anything yet.”
Signed in, Get my prompt fills in your site for you. Otherwise press Copy and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard once: Use your own AI (opens in a new tab).
What came across from your old site
When bernard moved your site in, it kept the tools that were already working - your analytics, a booking widget, an embedded map, a video player, a chat box. That’s deliberate. Stripping them out would have quietly broken the parts of your site you depend on, and nobody would have told you which ones.
So a moved site is not a blank slate, and it was never claimed to be. Those tools carry on doing on your bernard site exactly what they did on your old one. If you don’t recognise something in the list, that’s worth knowing rather than worth panicking about - plenty of sites carry a counter somebody installed years ago for a reason nobody remembers.
What bernard runs
If you switched measuring on, bernard adds its own visit counting - the plain “how many people came, which pages they read” numbers behind your weekly note. That one is optional by definition: it waits for the visitor’s permission before it does anything at all, and if they decline, it never starts. See How does the cookie banner on my site work? for how the asking works, and How do I tell if any of this is working? for what you get out of it.
If you never switched measuring on, bernard is counting nothing.
What you added yourself
Anything you asked Bernard to install is on the list too - your own Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, a chat widget, a Facebook (Meta) pixel for your Instagram and Facebook ads, or a Google Ads tag (Add my own analytics, Facebook pixel or chat tool to my site).
The advertising ones are worth calling out, because they’re asked about separately. Visitors get their own question about advertising cookies, and a pixel runs only for the people who say yes to that specific thing. Someone can allow visit counting and still refuse advertising - and if they do, Meta and Google Ads never hear about their visit at all.
Tools from other companies that you add to a page - a booking calendar, a review box, a comment thread, a translation switcher - are on the list as well. They wait for the visitor too: most show a “Show” button and load only when it is pressed, and a translation switcher waits for a yes in the banner. See How does the cookie banner on my site work?.
Getting the list
Ask Bernard to go through your site and tell you what’s running on it. You’ll get it in plain English - what each thing is, what it’s for, and which pages it appears on - not a wall of code. It’s a reading job: nothing changes while he looks.
Your site also has a cookies page that keeps the machine-checked part of this list accurate on its own, so visitors can see it too. That page is Can I change the cookies page on my site?.
Taking one out
If something on the list is no more than a leftover, ask Bernard to remove it from the pages it’s on. Two things worth doing first:
- Ask what it does. A forgotten counter can go without consequence. A booking widget takes the booking form with it.
- Look at the draft before approving. The removal lands as a pending change with the reason written down; you see the page without it, then approve. If you change your mind afterwards, your version history has the old version.
If your site came from WordPress, you can ask for the known WordPress leftovers in one go - an old cookie banner’s settings and hidden links back to your old WordPress address. Old form and language code is listed for you to check, never removed in that sweep. Bernard counts them on each page first, and nothing changes until you say yes.
The shorter the list, the less there is to explain to anybody - and the fewer things can quietly break. For what the different kinds of cookie actually are, and which ones need asking about, start with What are cookies, and why does my site need a banner?.
Questions people ask
- How do I find out what’s running without reading any code?
- Ask Bernard to go through your pages and list what he finds, in plain English - what each thing is, what it does, and which page it sits on. It’s a reading job, so nothing changes while he looks. If you then want one taken out, that’s a separate ask, and the removal lands on your draft for your approval before anything is live.
- Where did these tools even come from?
- Almost always from your old site. When bernard moved you across, the things that were already working - your analytics, a booking widget, an embedded map or video - came with you, because they’re part of how your site runs. Nothing new was added behind your back.
- Can I just remove one I don’t want?
- Yes. Ask Bernard to take it off the pages it’s on. He’ll show you what he’s removing and why, the change sits on your draft, and you press approve when you’re happy. If it turns out you wanted it after all, your version history goes back.
- Does removing a tool break my site?
- Usually not, but it depends what it was doing. Taking out a counter changes nothing a visitor sees. Taking out a booking widget takes out the booking form with it. Ask what a thing does before removing it - and because the change waits on your approval, you get to see the page without it first.
- Does my cookie banner hold back the tools that came from my old site?
- Not yet. The banner holds back the tools bernard adds for you, but a tool that came across inside your old pages still starts as soon as the page opens, before a visitor has said yes. When Bernard lists what’s on your site, he marks each tracking tool that starts before consent and names who makes it. You can then decide: remove the ones you no longer use, and where bernard supports the tool, have it added back the bernard way so the banner waits for a yes.
- My site came from WordPress. Can Bernard clear out the old plugin bits in one go?
- Yes. Ask him to clear out the WordPress leftovers. He looks for a short list of known pieces that stopped working when you moved: an old cookie banner’s settings, and links in the hidden top of each page that still point at your old WordPress address. He tells you how many he found on each page first, then removes them from every page in one change on your draft. Anything that points somewhere other than your old address stays, and so does anything bernard runs for you. Old form and language code is listed but left alone, because Bernard can’t be sure it has stopped working: check your contact form first.