1. What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files placed on your device when you visit a website. They help sites remember information about your visit — such as your preferences, whether you've already accepted a banner, and which pages you've already seen — so your next visit is smoother.
2. How PlanterHaven uses cookies
We use cookies on https://planterhaven.com for the following purposes:
- Essential functionality: remembering your cookie-consent choice and keeping the site secure.
- Analytics: understanding which articles and product reviews readers find useful, so we can improve our coverage.
- Affiliate tracking: when you click an outbound product link to a retailer, a cookie is set by the retailer (not by us) so they can credit PlanterHaven with the referral. This is how we fund the site without charging readers.
3. Cookie categories we set
3.1 Strictly necessary
- cookieConsent — records whether you accepted or declined cookies (so we don't show the banner on every visit). Stored locally, 1-year expiry.
3.2 Analytics & performance
- _ga, _gid, _gat — Google Analytics. Anonymised visitor counts, pages visited, time on site. We do not receive personally identifiable information from these.
3.3 Advertising & affiliate
- When you click through to a retailer via one of our outbound product links, that retailer places its own cookies on your browser for the sole purpose of attributing the referral. We have no access to the contents of those cookies.
4. Third-party cookies
Some cookies on PlanterHaven are set by third-party services we use:
- Google Analytics — traffic measurement. See Google's privacy policy.
- Retailer affiliate programs — each retailer's privacy policy governs any cookies they set.
We do not sell data to advertisers, and we do not participate in behavioural ad networks that build cross-site profiles.
5. How to control cookies
You have several options:
- Via our banner: click Decline on the consent banner the first time you visit. We will only set strictly-necessary cookies, and the site will continue to function.
- Via your browser: all modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge) let you block or delete cookies under their privacy settings. Note that blocking all cookies may disable preferences like saved filters.
- Via browser add-ons: tools such as Privacy Badger or uBlock Origin can block third-party tracking beyond what our banner offers.
- Opt out of Google Analytics: install the official opt-out browser add-on.
6. Changes to this policy
We may update this Cookie Policy to reflect changes in technology or regulations. When we do, we'll revise the date at the top of this page.
7. More information
For how we handle data outside of cookies, see our Privacy Policy. For questions about cookies specifically, please reach the editorial desk through our contact form.
