Cookie Policy
Version 1, effective 23 October 2026.
This policy explains which cookies and similar technologies onwardseo.com uses, why, and how you control them. It is part of our Privacy Policy, which says who we are (onwardSEO is a brand of Virtual Media SRL) and what your rights are. Questions: support@onwardseo.com.
What cookies are
Cookies are small text files that a website stores in your browser. Other ways of storing or reading information on your device, such as local storage, follow the same rules, and this policy covers them too. First-party cookies are set for onwardseo.com; third-party cookies are set for another company’s domain.
When we ask for your consent
Romanian Law 506/2004 (art. 4), which applies the EU ePrivacy Directive, lets a website store or read information on your device without consent only when this is strictly necessary to provide a service you have expressly asked for, or only to transmit a communication over a network. For all other cookies and device storage we ask first. We use three categories:
- Strictly necessary, always on: delivering the pages and keeping them secure, spam protection on our contact and CV forms, payment security on our order pages, staff log-in and remembering your cookie choice.
- Analytics, only with your consent: Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager.
- External media, only with your consent: the Calendly booking calendar.
One thing runs for every visitor without asking, although it is not a cookie and stores nothing on your device: Cloudflare Web Analytics. See Statistics without cookies below.
How your choice works
The first time you tap, click, press a key or scroll on our site, our cookie panel asks for your choice: Accept all, Reject all or Settings, where you choose each category. Nothing is pre-selected, and rejecting is as easy as accepting. Until you accept, nothing in the Analytics or External media categories loads: Google’s tag is not loaded at all (Google Consent Mode, basic setup), and the Calendly box shows a “Show calendar” button and a direct link to calendly.com instead of the calendar. Pressing “Show calendar” loads it and, if you have already made a choice, changes it to allow External media. Even with your consent to Analytics, our setup tells Google not to use the data for advertising.
Your choice is kept in the onw_consent cookie for 180 days. After that, or if you delete your cookies, we ask again.
How to change or withdraw your choice
Open Cookie settings, also linked at the bottom of every page, to change your choice at any time. Withdrawing is as easy as consenting: switching Analytics off stops Google Analytics and deletes its cookies on onwardseo.com, then reloads the page. Switching External media off stops the Calendly calendar from loading; cookies Calendly has already set on calendly.com can be deleted in your browser.
You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and stop Google Analytics on every website with Google’s opt-out browser add-on. If you block strictly necessary cookies, parts of the site, such as payment on our order pages, may not work.
The cookies we use
In the names below, [hash] stands for a random code and [user ID] for a staff member’s account number.
Strictly necessary (always on)
| Cookie and who sets it | What it does | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| onw_consent onwardseo.com (first party) |
Remembers your cookie choice: the panel version, the time, and whether you allowed Analytics and External media. | 180 days |
| cf_clearance Cloudflare, for onwardseo.com (first party) |
Shows that you passed a Cloudflare security check; set only after such a check. | 30 minutes |
| _GRECAPTCHA Google reCAPTCHA, www.google.com (third party) |
Spam protection on our contact and CV forms; loads on those pages at your first tap, click, key press or scroll. | Not stated by the provider |
| __stripe_mid Stripe, for onwardseo.com (first party) |
Fraud prevention for payments, on our two order pages, where Stripe’s script loads at your first tap, click, key press or scroll. | 1 year |
| __stripe_sid Stripe, for onwardseo.com (first party) |
Fraud prevention for payments, on our two order pages. | 30 minutes |
| m Stripe, m.stripe.com (third party) |
Fraud prevention for payments, on our two order pages. | 2 years |
| wordpress_logged_in_[hash], wordpress_sec_[hash] onwardseo.com (first party) |
Keep our staff logged in; only for people who log in. | End of session, or 14 days with “Remember me” |
| wordpress_test_cookie onwardseo.com (first party) |
Checks on the log-in page that your browser accepts cookies. | End of session |
| wp-settings-[user ID], wp-settings-time-[user ID] onwardseo.com (first party) |
Remember screen preferences in the admin area; staff only. | 1 year |
Analytics (only with your consent)
| Cookie and who sets it | What it does | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| _ga Google Analytics, for onwardseo.com (first party) |
Tells visitors apart with a random identifier. | 2 years in your browser (Chrome keeps cookies for at most 400 days) |
| _ga_C5MJN5STS2 Google Analytics, for onwardseo.com (first party) |
Keeps the state of your visit for our Analytics property. | 2 years in your browser (Chrome keeps cookies for at most 400 days) |
How long Google keeps Analytics data on its servers is explained in section 3.3 of our Privacy Policy.
External media (only with your consent)
| Cookie and who sets it | What it does | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| Calendly’s cookies Calendly, calendly.com (third party) |
Set by the booking calendar on our meeting pages, for the calendar to work and for Calendly’s own purposes, for which Calendly is a separate controller. Calendly’s privacy notice does not list them by name. | Not stated by the provider |
Statistics without cookies
Cloudflare Web Analytics runs for every visitor without asking. It measures how fast our pages load and counts visits: Cloudflare receives the page address, the page you came from, your browser and device type and the load times, and, like any request, your IP address, from which it works out your country. It sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device. We use it on the basis of our legitimate interest in a fast site and basic visit statistics (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)); section 3.2 of our Privacy Policy has the details. Because these statistics do not identify you, we cannot switch them off for one visitor; to stop them, block static.cloudflareinsights.com in your browser or content blocker.
Links to social networks
The Facebook, LinkedIn, X and WhatsApp icons at the bottom of our pages are plain links: nothing from these networks loads on our site. If you click one, you go to that network, where its own cookie policy applies.
Changes to this policy
We update this policy when the cookies we use change, and change its version and date. If we add something that needs your consent, we ask for your consent again.
Contact
Virtual Media SRL (onwardSEO), Str. Aviatorilor 3, Roman, Neamț County, Romania · support@onwardseo.com