About Google Analytics Cookies

Google Analytics is used to track traffic to this site, and thus, it will set first-party cookie on computers of my visitors. To help my visitors understand what it is and whether it contains any private information (in case someone wondered), Here is a quick guide.

__utma
Name: __utma

Content: 113896896.25837973.1319856246.1319856246.1319856246.1

Domain: .home.vrijvlinder.com
Path: /

Sent For: Any type of connection
Expires: 2013-27-10 09:14:08 PM


Remember, my site ID of home.vrijvlinder.com with Google Analytics will always be 113896896. That is a hash of my site name - in case you don't know what hash is, it is just a complicated way to turn a string (any string) into a unique number. The number 113896896 is always attached to this site. It is not changed unless I change my domain name.
25837973 is a random number - yes, that is me! Yours should be different than mine. It may be another random number. Everyone has its own number. That number does not change and follows you long enough - 2 years to be exact. That is maybe the only thing to identify you, my visitor, and nothing else is revealed.
Another interesting thing is the last number - that is how many times you have visited this site. Check back from time to time to see the total number of visit you come to this site.

__utmb
This is a 30 minute tracker - the content is the number I just described: with a 4 in it and ending with 246. That is this site again. Actually, this can be nothing or any other random number, because it is whether this cookie present or not that matters, not its value. Every time you visit the site, the expiration time is reset, such to keep the session as long as possible, if there are no pause longer than 30 minutes in the middle.

Name: __utmb
Content: 113896896.1319856246

Domain: .home.vrijvlinder.com
Path: /

Sent For: Any type of connection
Expires: Today 10:14:06

__utmc
This is completely the same as the previous one, except it expires at the end of the session - you close your browser. Just as __utmb, the presence of this cookie is more important than its value. If either of __utmb or __utma misses (__utmb disappears after 30 minutes, and __utmc disappears after the user close the browser), a new session, or in Google Analytics' term, a visit, starts.

Name: __utmc

Content: 113896896

Domain: .home.vrijvlinder.com

Path: /

Sent For: Any type of connection
Expires: End of session


__utmz
__utmz records the campaign information - it is about how a user comes to this site. It expires after 6 months. It comes from Google (as stated in utmcsr, or source), and is from (direct) search result (in utmccn) with term VrijVlinder music (as in utmctr, or term) and the media is none(as in utmcmd). This typically tells the story of how you get to this site - a search, from Google, and I didn't pay for the visit (none).
In this cookie, you notice that 113896896 is still there - my site, and 1241269038 is a time stamp.

Name: __utmz

Content: 113896896.1319856246.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmcnn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)

Domain: .home.vrijvlinder.com
Path: /

Sent For: Any type of connection

Expires: 2012-28-04 10:14:08 AM

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