Connecting Your Site to SureCookie (Scanner Setup)

SureCookie’s cookie scanner runs on our servers and loads your site in a real browser to find the cookies in use. Before your first scan, you connect your site to that service once.

Connecting links your site to your SureCookie account, which powers automatic categorization and compliance suggestions. Proving you control the domain is a separate step that runs on its own the first time you start a scan.

You only do this once per site. After connecting, you can scan anytime, and your consent banner, script blocking, and consent logging work whether or not a scan has run.

Before You Begin

Connecting happens over the public internet, so a few things need to be in place:

• A publicly reachable site – Connecting won’t work on localhost, a private network, or a development domain such as .local or .test, or while the site is behind HTTP basic auth, maintenance mode, or a coming-soon page.
• HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate – Verification fails on a self-signed or expired certificate.
• A reachable REST API – SureCookie verifies your site through a request to /wp-json/surecookie/v1/ on your domain. If a firewall blocks that path, connecting can’t complete.

Connect During Onboarding

The setup wizard opens automatically the first time you open SureCookie after activating the plugin. Connecting is one of its steps.

1. On the welcome screen, start the setup.
2. On Connect Your Account, click Connect, then sign in to your SureCookie account in the popup window.
3. Wait for the Connected to SureCookie confirmation, then continue to the scan step.

With SureCookie Pro installed, this step is titled Activate Your License instead. Paste your license key, click Activate License, and wait for License activated. An active license connects you on its own, so there is no Connect button to press.

Connect From the Scanning Screen

If you skipped the wizard, you can connect from the scanner instead.

With your site connected, you’re ready to sc

Note: Until your site is connected, scanning is unavailable and SureCookie shows an Account not connected prompt.

What SureCookie Sends

Neither step is a data transfer.

Connecting sends your site URL and a one-time key, so the account you sign in to can be matched back to this site.

Registering with the scanner, which happens on your first scan, sends:

• Your site URL
• The WordPress administrator email
• The SureCookie plugin version

No page content and no visitor data are sent. To verify the domain, SureCookie publishes a one-time token on your site and the scanner fetches it. Once verified, a private credential is stored on your site and used to sign future scan requests.

Connecting and Activating a License Are Separate Steps

Connecting registers your site with the scanner. Activating a SureCookie Pro license tells the scanner which plan that site is on. Paid scan limits need both, and the order you do them in decides how soon those limits apply.

In the free plugin there is no license to activate, and connecting is all you need. Connecting does not change your scan limits.

With SureCookie Pro, activate your key at SureCookie > Settings > License. An active license also counts as connected, so a licensed site never sees the Connect to scan your website screen.

• License activated before your first scan: Your site is not registered with the scanner yet, so the license cannot be attached to it. SureCookie retries in the background, at most once an hour, whenever an administrator loads a WordPress admin page. Until it lands, the scanner meters the site on free limits. On the first site you use a license on, that means the first scan can stop at the free page limit even though your plan is paid.
• License activated after your first scan: The license is attached right away, and the paid limits apply to your next scan.

The plugin caches your limits for about 10 minutes. After a license attaches, open SureCookie > Tracking Manager > Scanning and click Refresh limits to pull the current numbers.

For what each plan includes, see Scan Limits & Quotas Explained.

Run Your First Scan

With your site connected, you’re ready to scan. Your first scan is also when SureCookie verifies your domain, so it takes a little longer than the scans after it.

1. Go to SureCookie > Tracking Manager > Scanning > Manual.
2. Under Select Content, choose the pages to scan.
3. Click Start Scan.

The detected cookies appear on the All Cookies tab, sorted into the Essential, Functional, Analytics, and Marketing categories.

Troubleshooting

• The Connect button fails or you see “Account not connected” – SureCookie couldn’t reach your site to verify it. Confirm your site is public, served over HTTPS, and not in maintenance mode, then try again.
• You see an HTTP 422 or registration error – Verification was blocked, often by a security plugin or firewall. See Fix a Stuck or Failed Cookie Scan.
• You moved your site to a new domain – Connecting is tied to your domain. After a move, reconnect so SureCookie can re-verify and issue fresh credentials.
• SureCookie Pro is active but your scan limits are still the free ones: Your license can only attach after the scanner has registered your site, which happens on your first scan. Run a scan, keep working in the WordPress admin for an hour, then click Refresh limits on the Scanning screen. If the numbers are still the free ones after that, contact support: a license link that was sent but rejected is not re-checked for a week, and support can attach it from our side.

Next Steps

Once connected and scanned, review your cookie categories so your banner groups everything correctly. If a cookie you expected isn’t listed, see Why Some Cookies Aren’t Detected. If a scan won’t start or stalls, see Fix a Stuck or Failed Cookie Scan.