Question 1

What tags does Tag Inspector support?

Accepted Answer

We currently have 2,900+ classified tags documented in our tag library database. The more site scans we have, the more this library will continue to grow and update. With every site scan we run, we find all tags that are classified and build the reports you see in the interface. However, for all unclassified or unknown tags, we collect those in a separate repository to review. If there are any common tags found that are not classified, our team of highly qualified marketers research the tag and script to get the information needed to classify it in our tag library.

Since Tag Inspector can find image tags, JavaScript files, and other forms of tags, we update the tag library on a regular basis.

You can view a list of our supported tags here.

Question 2

What is a cookie and how does it work?

Accepted Answer

Cookies are an ever-changing topic of discussion in the world of analytics. This has become especially true with the introduction of Intelligent Tracking Prevention, or ITP. Due to data privacy laws such as GDPR or CCPA, you may have noticed pop-ups at the bottom of most websites you visit that inform you that cookies are being used and how they affect your experience on the site.		
																														
					What are cookies?				
		Quite simply, a cookie is a data file set by a website on your computer. They allow the website to store information that can be accessed later during your site exploration. This information commonly includes if you logged in today, your history on the site, and some insights about you based on your page views.		
					First-party cookies vs. third-party cookies				
		When a site uses cookies, there are rules about what can and can’t be done. A site can set a cookie for any domain, but the cookies can only be accessed for the site you are currently visiting.A first-party cookie is a cookie set and accessed by the website you are visiting.A third-party cookie is set for another website that can be accessed by that website when it is visited later.		
					Cookies in action				
		First, let’s look at how first-party cookies can be used.Let’s say you visit example.blog and read an article about caring for your labrador retriever.Here’s what happens:The site sets a cookie that you are interested in the labrador retriever dog breed.The next time you visit example.blog, the cookie that was set is used to recommend articles and other content about labrador retrievers.Now that we understand what is happening with first-party cookies, let’s be clear as to what isn’t happening. The site does not show you featured articles about caring for chihuahuas because the site knows that the last time you were here you engaged with content about labradors, not chihuahuas.Simply put, the site uses first-party cookies to show you content it believes you to be interested in based on your engagement with related content (in this case, articles about labrador retrievers) in the past.Now, let’s see how third-party cookies can be used in the same situation, only this time example.blog uses an ad service on their website from pet.store. Here’s what happens:pet.store may set a cookie about your dog breed preference.You visit pet.store for the first time tomorrow. A cookie is already there and they can target your experience by featuring supplies specifically for labrador retriever owners.Now, with third-party cookies, it’s very important to understand what isn’t happening:When you visit pet.store, they cannot access the cookies for example.blog or any other domain that has been set.When you are on example.blog, pet.store cannot access any cookies (including their own); they can only set one for pet.store.*By visiting example.blog, you have customized your experience on a retail site, pet.store, that you have never visited before—all thanks to third-party cookies. But wait…Okay, did you notice that asterisk(*) on the last bullet point? There’s a way around that last rule about how third-party cookies can be set and accessed.When example.blog allows a tag (like an ad) to be placed on their site, it can be treated as if you are visiting a different website within that area of the website (basically a website within a website).		
																														
		This means pet.store can access all of the information from their cookie from within the site you’re visiting. Instead of your experience on pet.store being personalized, now the blog example.blog is personalized with new information from pet.store, as well (within the ad space). 
If you’ve visited pet.store in the past to buy dog food, you may now see dog food advertised in the ad space.
Using cookies in this way allows businesses to intelligently track consumers around the internet.

Question 3

What are marketing tags and pixels?

Accepted Answer

Marketing tags and pixels? What are those?Our team here at Tag Inspector specializes in all-things tags and pixels. We implement them, audit them, monitor them, validate them, etc. Unless you work in IT or advertising/marketing operations, tags and pixels are probably a foreign concept that you’ve been hearing more and more about lately.We’ve certainly been fielding more questions about them.Over the past few weeks there have been a handful of people reaching out with a short, and seemingly simple, question. “So, uh, what exactly are tags?”And it is not a surprise that more people that work in marketing, analytics, and media positions need a better understanding of what tags are, where they come from, and what they do. With the explosion of Tag Management Systems in the past few years, technical implementation and management of tags/pixels lies closer to those playing in analytics and making decisions from conversion and behavior data than ever before.So let us help!		
					What is a tag pixel?				
		A tag (or often called pixel) is a short snippet of JavaScript (code) that does something on your website. In the context of marketing/advertising tags and pixels, they are often collecting some information about the visitor to a website and their behavior on the site. This is then sent back to the respective marketing/advertising platform to be processed and reported.A quick common example: Facebook tags/pixels – A Facebook pixel is implemented across all pages of a website to collect information about users that came to the site via Facebook. A Facebook tag may be implemented on a “Thank You” page after purchasing a product. When you reach the “Thank You” page, the Facebook tag will execute (or “fire”) and send Facebook information about the products you purchased, the revenue of the transaction, the advertisement/article you came to the shopping site from, etc.In our example, the Facebook tag is what makes analysis and reporting on the user behavior possible.This is what a tag looks like in the source code of a page (Google Tag Manager in this example from the Tag Inspector site):		
																														
		As you can see, nothing too impressive from the looks of it. But the real power is in how they work.		
					How do marketing and advertising tags and pixels work?				
		Now, this is a much more complicated question that depends greatly upon the individual tag we’re looking at. At a very high level, the process works as follows:A user pulls up a web page, thus initiating page load.The browser “reads” the source code of the page; embedded in the source code are the various JavaScript tags (like the script that you see above).When the browser “reads” the part of the page where the JavaScript tag/pixel is, it executes (or “fires”). A little caveat here is if tags are managed through a Tag Management System or if they are piggybacking off another tag. In which case, the initial tag (or TMS) that is on the page is what is executed. That tag (or Tag Management System) that fired, fires the other tags that are contained within it.When a tag is fired, its given function is executed for most tags; this means that tracking information is sent. The tag will capture information from the user (possible data such as user ID, the source that the user came from, location of the user, etc.), information from the page (if it’s an e-commerce site this would be information like the products being viewed, information about each product like SKU, price, color, etc. or for a content site would be information such as article title, author, etc.), and information from the URL (here is where the campaign information comes in, if using Adobe Analytics it may be the CID value or in Google Analytics it may be utm parameters).The data grabbed by the tag is then sent to a third-party place where it is recorded and processed, leading to the pretty analytics reports and web analytics! For many tags, the request being sent will be structured as follows: www.thirdpartydomain.com/?a=userinfo1&b=pageinfo2&c=campaigninfo3. The first section (thirdpartydomain.com) shows us where the data is going and the section at the end is the data being collected in the query string.This same process then continues for all tags deployed on each page and each event (or on-screen action, i.e. button click) that is set up. The result is the analytics reports that we all know and love.The process also highlights one major key that is often overlooked or unrealized: proper tag implementation and function is the basis for all web analytics, media campaign measurement, downstream big data analysis, and ultimately insights about performance of marketing and advertising efforts.That old parable about a house built on solid ground? Proper tag architecture is that solid foundation that everything else is built on.Now you’re saying, “So tags and pixels are pretty important to all the work being done in digital marketing and advertising, what can I do to make sure our tags are all working right?”That’s a great question!Easy answer? Contact us at Tag Inspector and let us help you out!

Question 4

What is a tag and what is Tag Inspector?

Accepted Answer

What is a tag, anyway?
A tag is a small piece of code (JavaScript) that is loaded on your website which typically calls an external application (Google Analytics, Facebook etc.), that collects useful data about visits to your website. Most tags collect anonymous information about user visits, like pages viewed, time spent on the site, elements of the site they interacted with, etc. Some tags collect PII (Personally Identifiable Information); this information is very useful to marketers, but also the target of regulation from the EU (GDPR) and State of California (CCPA), with more state regulatory authorities expected.
What is Tag Inspector?
Tag Inspector is a proprietary browser-based application developed by InfoTrust that reports and verifies data about the tags loaded on your website. Tag Inspector has two primary features, Scanner and Governance.

Question 5

My website uses a Consent Management Platform, does Tag Inspector emulate user consent choices?

Accepted Answer

Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) and tag auditing platforms may serve different purposes, but together they shape a unified approach to monitoring consent. As CMPs handle how user consent choices are collected and enforced, tag auditing platforms like Tag Inspector can then validate whether these are honored in practice.

Tag Inspector has the functionality to simulate how a real user’s consent preference impacts the behavior of tags loading on a website.

During a scan, the tool can interact with the implemented CMP on the website to select the consent option(s) available to users and report which tags fire under such conditions. It can also crawl pages with default consent (meaning no interaction with the CMP banner at all), or with a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal set on the browser.

By emulating these different consent states, Tag Inspector helps ensure your CMP configuration is working as intended. Not only does this reinforce privacy compliance, but also allows you to deliver a consistent and reliable user experience across your digital properties.

List of supported Consent Management Platforms

Below is the list of Tag Inspector’s currently supported CMPs grouped by consent:

Binary Consent (Accept All / Reject All):

Cassie
 	CivicUK
 	Complianz
 	ComplyAuto
 	CookieBot
 	CookieYes
 	Drupal
 	Evidon
 	Ketch
 	OneTrust
 	Quantcast
 	SecuritiAI
 	Syrenis
 	Tealium
 	TrustArc
 	UserCentrics

Categorical Consent (Category-level choices such as Functional, Performance, Marketing, etc.)

OneTrust

Question 6

Is there an API available for Tag Inspector?

Accepted Answer

The Tag Inspector API allows for access to structured data so it can be integrated into your own systems. Most of the data you see in Tag Inspector’s interface is available through the API, along with some additional data points.

Our clients that utilize the API include some very successful tag management systems. They use the capabilities of Tag Inspector within their platforms so their clients can validate the deployment of the tag management system.
Tag Inspector API use cases

Constant monitoring and reporting of analytics/conversion tags on your site in performance dashboards
 	Aggregation of competitor research by scanning and reporting on their website
 	Pulling in all the tag implementation and JavaScript errors for your site

Endpoints
Here are the endpoints available from Tag Inspector’s API:

List of Tags Found on the Site
 	List of Pages Scanned
 	JavaScript Errors on the Site
 	Tag Implementation Errors
 	Network Logs for loading the Tags / Tags on specific pages
 	Tag Hierarchy Information
 	Tag Rules Violation
 	Tag Hierarchy Visualization – get a visual map of tags firing on the site.

Response formats
All responses are in JSON format and all request parameters are mandatory unless explicitly marked as [optional] in the documentation.
Tag Inspector API documentation
For more detailed information on the API, please contact us.

Question 7

Does Tag Inspector have an option to quickly view the tags loading on a single page?

Accepted Answer

The Scanner feature in Tag Inspector will certainly tell you the tags loading on any single page in the "Pages" report. Sometimes you need to do a quick spotcheck to validate tags are loading as you expect. One example would be to see what tags are loading before and after you "accept" the cookie consent banner on your URL to ensure regulatory compliance. Maybe your web development team just rolled out a new pixel or Tag Manager and you need to do a fast verification. For these reasons and many more, the Tag Inspector team created a Chrome plugin called Tag Explorer.Tag Explorer uses the same expansive 2,900+ tag library as our award-winning Tag Inspector product, so you will be confident we will find the tags you are looking for. You can install the Tag Explorer Chrome extension here.		
																														
		Once installed, Tag Explorer appears as a "magnifier" on the right side of your address bar in chrome next to any other extensions you may have installed. As long as the Tag Explorer extension is enabled it will search for tags on every page you browse; if any tags are found a count will appear in the green box below the magnifying lens, just like the example above.
Clicking the Tag Explorer extension will list out all the tags we discovered.
Selecting an individual tag will list out all the network requests made by the platform. 
Selecting this button next to a network request will provide any parameters and values passed in the request.As you can see Tag Explorer is a useful tool for quick tag analysis, and the best part? It is FREE!

Question 8

Does Tag Inspector detect cookies set by my website?

Accepted Answer

The nature of the marketing and advertising technology landscape is constantly shifting. The most recent winds pushing the industry are those of transparency and user privacy. Across the globe, we are seeing new regulations such as GDPR, ePrivacy Directives, and the California Consumer Privacy Act. In the wake of these regulations, there are also technical initiatives being introduced by major browsers such as Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) and Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Prevention (ETP).

Given the current privacy and compliance environment, it is more important than ever to truly understand the data being collected across all of your websites, along with the behavior of all tags.

Addressed directly with some of the privacy legislation, as well as ITP and ETP, is the placement and use of cookies being set on users’ browsers when they are accessing your websites.
What is the cookie audit and reporting functionality, exactly?
Whenever you run a new Tag Inspector scan—in addition to all the great tag loading behavioral data you receive—you will also find a few additional sections to the reporting.
Cookies Set By Tag

In the “Scan Details” section of your Tag Inspector scan report, you will find a module titled “Cookies Set by Tag.” When you select any of the tags found loading on your website, you can find a list of the cookies set, domain on which they are set, the method in which each is set, and then also the number of pages on which each cookie is being set.
Cookie Reporting

For any new scan run, you will now find a unique section of the scan report titled “Cookies.” Within this reporting, you are able to view a list of all cookies being set on the browser when the scan was run. It will list the name of each cookie, the tag setting the cookie, the domain on which the cookie is set, as well as the method by which the cookie was set.

To see more granular information about each of the cookies found, you can also click on the name of the cookie to view the URLs on which the cookie is being set, the specific file that is running to set the cookie, as well as the value for each cookie on each of the unique URLs on which it is set.

How It Works
The cookie collection functionality is applied to all accounts and does not require any special user action to enable. Simply kick off a new scan and view the cookie information collected in the results.
Common Use Cases
Visibility around the cookies being set on your website and the ability to drill into the specifics of each can come into play for several different projects and initiatives. A few examples of the primary ones to keep in mind are the following:
Cookie auditing for privacy regulations
If you have websites in the EU, you are definitely familiar with the ePrivacy Directive. This directive, commonly referred to as “EU Cookie Laws,” directs each individual EU member state to have laws and regulations regarding the use of cookies and data storage for users on your websites. While each country has its own unique guidance, the laws require different methods and levels of disclosure and consent for the use of cookies.

The first step on the journey to compliance with these regulations is to understand all of the cookies being set when users are navigating your websites and the platforms that are responsible for them. Only with this information (and regular cookie audits to stay up to date) can you ensure the disclosure and consent requirements are being adhered to.

The Tag Inspector cookie auditing functionality makes the process of visibility and auditing quick and painless so you can make sure no unauthorized cookies or platforms are loading on sites, putting you at risk for violation.
Evaluating the potential impact of Apple’s ITP and Firefox’s ETP updates
The new technical initiatives for privacy being rolled out across Safari and Firefox browsers are targeted directly at the cookies being set on websites. With the most recent releases to these tracking prevention efforts, third-party all but killed and first-party cookies set via JavaScript have significant restrictions placed on them as well.

In the new cookie auditing functionality, you can clearly see which of the cookies being set on your site are first-party, which are third-party, and if they are being set via JavaScript. Only after you get a grasp for these cookies and their associated platforms can you begin to estimate the risk these privacy initiatives pose to your marketing and advertising efforts. From there you can put together a mitigation plan and assess your strategy for privacy-friendly advertising moving forward.
Consent Management Platform implementation
With GDPR, ePrivacy, and CCPA all carrying disclosure requirements at a minimum, many organizations are turning to Consent Management Platforms to handle notification and consent processes. One of the nice things about these platforms is that they make it easy to keep up-to-date lists and information about the different cookies being set on your sites. The difficulty with these tools is that while they manage the consent experience and opt-in/opt-out, they do not have a mechanism to actually stop cookies from being set.

To make this happen, you need to implement the tags on your website in a manner consistent with the Consent Management System. The new Tag Inspector cookie audit functionality allows you to see these associations in one easy to view output. Understand exactly which platforms are setting which cookies to clearly outline and then implement the tags on your websites in such a way as to be consistent with the consent management implementation being undertaken.

Question 9

Does Tag Inspector detect tags in the checkout funnel?

Accepted Answer

Collecting data during purchase events and strategic user goals on your website is of paramount importance to digital marketers. Ensuring that all data collection tags are in place when these events occur is a must. Here are three ways Tag Inspector can help:
Scanner
Scanner is the core feature of Tag Inspector; it crawls or "spiders" all pages of your URL to detect tags. It cannot on its own perform actions like "add to cart," input usernames/passwords/e-mail, add quantities, or enter a credit card for a test transaction. Tag Inspector would not be able to detect tags inside checkout funnels that require the input of some form of data to progress through the funnel. 
Tag Explorer
Tag Explorer is a Chrome extension or "plugin" developed by the technical team at Tag Inspector. When this extension is enabled on your Chrome browser, it detects all the tags loading on the page you are currently browsing. Tag Explorer can be used while you browse through a checkout funnel, making it a quick way to spot check your tags in the funnel (albeit manually). Learn more about Tag Explorer here.

Question 10

My website has visitors from multiple countries, does Tag Inspector emulate this behavior?

Accepted Answer

A foundational aspect of any tag governance process must be consideration of any privacy and compliance regulations relevant to an organization. We’ve seen GDPR completely change the data collection landscape in the EU and across the globe. As more and more organizations are coming to terms with the new tracking environment, conditional tag execution is becoming more the rule than the exception.In response to this trend of varying tag behaviors based upon the location of the user visiting a website, Tag Inspector provides a functionality to select a geolocation from which to run scans. With this option, users are able to define the location from which they would like Scanner traffic to be generated. The effect is the ability to simulate a user that is accessing the site from the United States, several locations in the EU, or from Australia. This will identify changes in tag behavior on your site based upon user location and more thoroughly audit tag behavior for site users protected by GDPR.Common Use Cases:Tag Auditing and Monitoring for GDPR - Scan your domains as if the site is being accessed by a user from France, Germany, or the UK to take the guesswork out of identifying the collection of any personal data on your site. Test the Implementation of a Consent Management Solution - Use a combination of the geolocation scan options and our cookie/tracking consent options to ensure the consent management solution on your site is blocking tags from loading as expected. Having a policy and solution for GDPR is great, but it must be working to be compliant.Test Conditional Loading of Tags on a U.S. Site - A conservative solution being used by some clients is to block tags from loading for EU users on their U.S. sites. The implementation of this is reliant on accurately identifying the country of origin for traffic and the proper configuration of tags to not execute when the traffic originates from the EU. Run scans simulating this behavior to test and monitor the configuration of tags in this scenario.Functionality:With Tag Inspector, you will see an option to select the Scan Region in Step 2 of creating a new scan.		
																														
		Simply use the drop-down menu to select the region from which the scan should be run. The results of the scan will then reflect the selection. In any scan report, you can view the scan origin applied to the scan in the Report Overview section of reporting:		
																														
		Simply use the drop-down menu to select the region from which the scan should be run. The results of the scan will then reflect the selection. In any scan report, you can view the scan origin applied to the scan in the Report Overview section of reporting:Auditing and monitoring tags for GDPR and regional-specific privacy requirements are made easier with Tag Inspector. Scan sites as a user from the EU to ensure your governance policy is properly implemented and working.List of supported VPN regionsBelow is the list of Tag Inspector’s supported VPN regions grouped by continent:AfricaAlgeriaEgyptGhanaKenyaMoroccoSouth AfricaAsiaArmeniaAzerbaijanBangladeshBhutanBrunei DarussalamCambodiaCyprusGeorgiaHong KongIndiaIndonesiaIsraelJapanKazakhstanKenyaLaosLebanonMacauMalaysiaMongoliaMyanmarNepalPakistanPhilippinesSingaporeSouth KoreaSri LankaTaiwanThailandTurkeyUnited Arab EmiratesUzbekistanVietnamAustraliaAdelaideBrisbaneGuamMelbourneNew ZealandPerthEuropeAlbaniaAndorraAustriaBelarusBelgiumBosnia and HerzegovinaBulgariaCroatiaCyprusCzech RepublicDenmarkEstoniaFinlandFranceGeorgiaGreeceHungaryIcelandIrelandIsle of ManItalyJerseyLatviaLithuaniaLuxembourgMaltaMoldovaMonacoMontenegroNetherlandsNorth MacedoniaNorwayPolandPortugalRomaniaSerbiaSlovakiaSloveniaSpain - BarcelonaSpain - MadridSwedenSwitzerlandUkraineNorth AmericaBahamasBermudaCanada - MontrealCanada - TorontoCanada - VancouverCayman IslandsCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicGuatemalaHondurasJamaicaMexicoPanamaPuerto RicoTrinidad and TobagoNorth America - United StatesAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaChicagoColoradoConnecticutFloridaFlorida (duplicate)GeorgiaHawaiiIllinoisIndianaIowaKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMississippiMissouriNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonRhode IslandSan FranciscoSanta MonicaSeattleSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashington DCWest VirginiaSouth AmericaArgentinaBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaEcuadorPeruSão PauloUruguayVenezuela

Question 11

How long does it take for Tag Inspector to scan my website?

Accepted Answer

The Scanner feature in Tag Inspector is a "crawler" or "bot" which scans every page of your URL (or pages you identified). The scan timeframe largely depends upon how many pages you are scanning. If your scan is less than 200-300 pages usually results will be available within the hour. Larger scale scans with thousands of pages can take up to 24 hours. When your scan is complete you will be notified via e-mail.

Question 12

How do I export data from Tag Inspector?

Accepted Answer

Tag Inspector has an export feature which allows you to create custom exports in .csv format that can be used for documentation/tag governance needs. Exports are available for both the Scanner and Realtime feature in Tag Inspector. Here is the step-by step for creating an export:		
																														
		To start, press the export button on the top right of the application next to "Start a New Scan."		
																														
		This will bring you to the exports page in the application. Select "Create a New Export." 		
																														
		This will allow you to select an export from Scanner or Realtime.		
																														
		In the example above "Scanner" was selected, the application will ask you to select which scan/date you want an export from. Pick or search for a scan in the list.		
																														
		Next you will select the type of export you want to download.		
																														
		Then you will select the fields and data to be populated in the export .csv; if you do not see the data you are looking for, go back and change the export type. When you have made your selection select submit.		
																														
		Your new export will be queued and depending upon the amount of data in the export, may take as little as a few minutes to 24 hours to complete. When the export is complete a download button will appear for you to download the .csv.

Question 13

What information is in the scan report from Tag Inspector?

Accepted Answer

Watch the video or read below to learn more about the data included in the Scan Report generated by the Scanner feature in Tag Inspector.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC00aw8W4LoTo access the completed scans, log in to Tag Inspector, select Scanner, and in “My Scans,” click the URL of the scan you would like to view. This will take you to the Scan Overview page.		
																														
					Scan Overview				
																														
		The Scan Overview will give you basic statistics about the scan such as the number of pages scanned, how many tags were found, the date and time when the scan started and was completed, as well as the options applied to the scan.The dropdown box on the upper-right corner will allow you to switch between previous scan views.From the report, you have the option to rerun the scan with the same settings, or tweak them as you like. You can also share a public view-only link of the scan result that can be accessed in incognito, and download a .csv export of the scan.		
																														
		The tag hierarchy provides a visual representation of the tags found on your site and how they were loaded. Lines drawn to the URL are tags loaded directly from the website source code, while tags connecting to other tags are tags loaded either by a Tag Management System or rather what we call "piggybacking" from other tags.This can look a bit more complex for other sites, where there could be multiple generations of tags firing.Especially if you got more pages scanned, note that this chart may not display all of your tags, as it only shows tags that are loading at least 1 percent from your site.		
					Tag Details				
																														
		Tag Details provides a list of all the tags detected by Tag Inspector Scanner and indicates the number of pages it has been found out of all the pages scanned. Selecting a tag in this list will display further information about the tag, including:Tag descriptionSnippet (tag hierarchy) of how this tag was loaded on your site - Chart view and table viewNote: It is recommended to look into the table view for a comprehensive list of Stacktraces, along with specific network requests detected on each URL the tag was found on. These are the data you can use to manually verify if the tag is really firing on your site.Any parameters set by the tag* (best used for analytics purposes)All pages containing the tag*All pages missing the tag*Any cookies set by the tag*(*) - Export is availableTag Inspector works on click for more details model (click green texts for more info).		
					Pages				
																														
		The Pages tab lists all the pages crawled by the Scanner. Selecting a page from the left will provide a full link and a screenshot, as well as the corresponding load times of that page. You may encounter a different response code for a page, like 404 if it is broken, or a 403 if forbidden.		
																														
		A tag hierarchy within that page is displayed and a waterfall chart will present the sequence of all the tags that fired and the request time for each on the page. You may also expand a tag for request information.		
					Cookies				
																														
		The Cookies tab provides all the cookies set by your site. Clicking on a cookie will give you a list of pages containing the cookie.

Question 14

How do I use advanced scan options?

Accepted Answer

To access advanced scan options, log in to Tag Inspector, select "Scanner" in the top-left corner, then select "Start A New Scan." Type in the URL of the website you would like to scan and the number of pages you would like to scan, then select "Next Step."		
																														
		This will bring you to the scan options page. After you have selected all the preferred standard options, press the "Advanced Options" button to configure advanced features. More details about the standard scan features and how to run a scan can be found  here.		
																														
		Advanced Options allows you to enable these features:Scan specific pagesRemove the query string from specific URLsRewrite URLClear cookies on every page		
					Scan Specific Pages				
		By default, Tag Inspector will crawl any page on your site in random order. To specify only a specific page or group of pages, you can modify the crawler to only scan the URLs you want.
Example:Say your company has multiple language versions of your site with different subdirectories to split it up, and you only want to scan the U.S. English version. If your URL structure is http://www.site.com/locale/ such as http://www.brand.com/us/en/ vs http://www.brand.com/mx/es/ you can set up a rule to scan URL contains "/us/en/".		
																														
		Select "+Add Rule" to narrow the scan results to the pages you want or do not want scanned.		
																														
		The drop-down box allows you to include/exclude or specify specific pages to scan.		
					Remove the query string from the following URL				
		Many sites utilize query string parameters to distinguish unique pages for users, though the general content (and typically tagging architecture) can be the same. To avoid scanning the same page multiple times due to unique query strings, use this feature to exclude all additional duplicate pages that contain a question mark ("?") or hash ("#") symbol.Example:Say your site has unique product pages that all have the same tagging architecture and layout, only unique content. Your site may have URLs similar tohttp://www.site.com/product, http://www.site.com/product?id=1, http://www.site.com/product?id=2 etc. By removing the query string from URL contains /product/, you will set the crawler to skip the "?id=" pages and only scan http://www.site.com/product.		
																														
		Select "+Add Rule" to remove the querystring from your URLS.		
					Rewrite URL				
		This feature allows you to group certain pages together that may contain the same types of tags and avoid unnecessary scanning of similar pages. This is to be used only when certain pages are confirmed to be the same, but may have different URL patterns. You can set a regex for the URL pattern you want to group, and identify the substitution URL you want all pages within that URL pattern to be grouped under.Note: This feature is only recommended for users that know Regex syntax.Example:Say you have portions of your site that have unique URLs but contain the same content and tags, such as category pages. Your site URL structure may resemble this: http://www.site.com/category/food, http://www.site.com/category/snacks, http://www.site.com/category/foods-today etc. If you are confident all pages within the /category/ sub-directory are the same and can be scanned as one page, you can leverage the Rewrite URL feature by setting:URL pattern "/category/(.*)" and a substitution URL "/category/". This will group all pages with the subdirectory /category/ together.		
																														
		Select "+Add Rule" to rewrite a URL pattern.		
					Clear cookies on every page				
		Tag Inspector scans every page of the website you specify over a single session, or multiple sessions in the case of large scans. Cookies set by those sessions are detected and reported in the scan report when the scan is complete. Selecting the "Clear cookies on every page" button creates a new session for each page you scan. This will give you a clear view of which pages are or are not setting cookies.		
					Obey robots.txt				
		robots.txt contain instructions for crawlers on which portions of a website they are only allowed to visit. Enabling this option will perform a more secure scan on your website but will exclude pages that the Tag Inspector Scanner is told it cannot access.

Question 15

How do I perform a scan on my website?

Accepted Answer

Learn how to perform one of the core features of Tag Inspector using Scanner to detect all the tags loaded on your site.Scanner is an industry-leading tool that helps our clients:Create a tag governance policy (audit).Monitor their website against the introduction of unwanted tags, and ensure approved tags are on the pages they need to be.Detect all site tags for privacy compliance (GDPR/CCPA, etc.).Ensure website page/tag performance with detailed load time metrics.Watch the video or read below to learn how to perform a basic scan using the Scanner feature in Tag Inspector.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdZwdfPThAgNote: Tag Inspector no longer offers creation of free accounts and users have to be added to their respective enterprise org in order to access the tool.If you have any troubles logging in, please contact support@taginspector.com.		
					Step-by-step to perform a site scan				
		Go to www.taginspector.com, and click login on the top right of your browser.		
																														
		Once you have logged in, select the default group of your enterprise org under My Organizations and hit Start A New Scan on the top right side of the dashboard.

On the New Scan window, enter the domain or specific URL you would like to scan and use the slider to adjust the maximum number of pages to scan. Note: The limit varies on the account, and Tag Inspector can only scan as many pages as it could find within the number you have set.		
																														
		In the next step of the New Scan window, you will select options to narrow or broaden the scan data you are looking for. Here are the items to consider:Which browser platform do you want Scanner to emulate? (e.g. Chrome, Safari, Mobile Safari, IE, etc.)Do you want to emulate traffic from outside the United States? Scanner will emulate sessions from other countries. Click here for more details.Do you want Scanner to accept cookies if consent is required on your URL? Tag Inspector currently supports categorical consent by OneTrust.Which consent option would you like the Scanner to emulate?Accept All cookies/trackingReject All cookies/trackingDefault (No interaction with consent banner)Send a GPC signal for opt-outAccept cookies/tracking on selected categoriesNote: Tag Inspector should only be able to detect consent categories from your site if OneTrust is set, otherwise only binary consents such as Enabled and Disabled will be supported.Do you want to include subdomains of the URL you are scanning, like a blog or knowledge base?Do you want to include the secure HTTP schema in your scan?Do you want to include tags found before a user has selected consent?Do you want to enable any advanced scan options? Advanced scan options are covered in detail here.		
																														
		In the final step of the New Scan window, enter the start date of your scan (present date is set by default) and select the scan frequency if you would like to perform regular scans. Press "Begin Scan!"		
																														
		Now your scan is already queued! Results will usually return and be available depending on how many pages you have selected to scan.
You will get an e-mail alert once your scan has finished. You may also access the completed reports through Scanner under My Scans tab, which contains all the URLs scanned in your org.

This is what a scan report looks like, providing a detailed overview of all the tags loaded on each page, tag parameters set, tag descriptions, tag/page load time, and more!

Question 16

Tag Inspector did not find all the tags I expected, what do I do?

Accepted Answer

I've run a scan but I am missing some tags that I expect to be on the website, why is this and what can I do?		
					Does your website have a Cookie Consent Banner?				
		Tag Inspector only knows how to "accept" cookies from certain cookie consent providers. Currently we support Evidon, Tealium, OneTrust, TrustArc/Truste, Ensighten, Tag Commander and Baycloud. If your website is using any other cookie consent tool our Scanner does not know how to "Accept Cookies," therefore tags will not load, or a limited number of tags will load.If you believe this is the case contact us and we will create a solution for your URL.		
					Does your website use Recaptcha/Firewall?				
		If your website uses Recaptcha or has a firewall specifically configured to block robots, this could prevent Tag Inspector completely or limit its ability to crawl your website and detect tags. We do have the ability for premium users to have Tag Inspector scan from a static IP address, which will give your website development team the opportunity to whitelist Tag Inspector for scanning. Contact us if you believe this may be the case, and certainly we can help in making this determination! Find out more about static IP scanning here.		
					Maybe you are using a tag that is not in our library!				
		This is a rare case, but possible that you are using a tag that is not already defined in our 2,500+ tag library. We make a deliberate effort to include new platforms as they come online and regularly update our tag library, but you could have something we missed. If you feel this is potentially the case contact us and we will add the platform into the system right away!

Question 17

Tag Inspector did not find any tags on my website, what do I do?

Accepted Answer

You have run a scan on a website and Tag Inspector reported "No Tags here..." Why is this and what can be done to correct it?		
					Does your website have a cookie consent banner?				
		Tag Inspector only knows how to "accept" cookies from certain cookie consent providers. Currently we support Evidon, Tealium, OneTrust, TrustArc/Truste, Ensighten, Tag Commander, and Baycloud. If your website is using any other cookie consent tool our Scanner does not know how to "Accept Cookies," therefore tags will likely not load.If you believe this is the case, contact us and we will create a solution for your URL.		
					Does your website require a login?				
		Tag Inspector does not have the inherent ability to create a username and password for a site that requires credentials to view. If you are scanning a password-protected site or page we will not detect the tags.		
					Does your website use Recaptcha/Firewall?				
		If your website uses Recaptcha or has a firewall specifically configured to block robots, this could prevent Tag Inspector completely or limit its ability to crawl your website.We do have the ability for premium users to have Tag Inspector scan from a static IP address, which will give your website development team the opportunity to whitelist Tag Inspector for scanning. Contact us if you believe this may be the case, and certainly we can help in making this determination! Find out more about static IP scanning here.		
					There are no tags on your URL!				
		Unusual, but possible! If you are using a Tag Management System like Google Tag Manager, and it is responsible for loading all tags, you could have a situation in which the Tag Manager was accidentally removed!The Tag Inspector team developed a chrome plugin, Tag Explorer, that uses the same tag library as Tag Inspector. The plugin is free and a easy way to check if a single page on your website is loading any tags at all—you can download it here. If a scan reports "no tags found", it might be worth running Tag Explorer just to be sure that you do actually have tags on the URL.		
					When in doubt, check the scan logs!				
		In the Scan Report for the URL in Tag Inspector you will find a "Scan Logs" section, which may be able to point you in the right direction in some cases.		
																														
		As always, if you cannot determine the cause you can always reach out to us and we will investigate!

Question 18

I want to whitelist the Tag Inspector Scanner, what IP address do I use?

Accepted Answer

By default, the Tag Inspector Scanner uses a dynamic IP address; therefore, the free version of Tag Inspector and premium accounts will be a random IP. If you have an instance in which you must whitelist the scanner feature to scan your website here is the process:You must have a premium license; we cannot perform static IP scanning on the free version.Contact Tag Inspector support or your InfoTrust consultant to request that your Tag Inspector account is setup for static IP scanning.Whitelist the IP address(s) below based on the scan region you are using for your scans.Use the Scanner feature as you would normally; all of your scans will now be using a static IP address.By default, scans are set to the United States, Virginia region, but Tag Inspector allows scans from various worldwide regions if that feature is enabled on your account. Be sure to whitelist the correct IPs based on your needs. (Whitelist both IPs for each region; the first is the primary IP and the second is the "fallback" IP; both could be used.) See the list below for reference:Virginia, US54.209.73.24352.4.188.117California, US18.144.179.145Sydney, Australia13.210.90.8013.237.118.160Frankfurt, Germany3.120.254.2052.29.64.242London, England52.56.169.443.8.81.100 Paris, France52.47.54.12335.180.161.87São Paulo, Brazil54.232.19.11954.232.166.63Osaka, Japan15.152.134.3513.208.82.88Montreal, Canada3.98.172.1173.98.205.45

Question 19

Tag Inspector could not scan my website, what do I do?

Accepted Answer

If you use Tag Inspector to scan a URL for tags and receive a message that we "couldn't scan" your website, like below, here are a few things to consider.		
																														
					Wrong/Bad URL				
		First easy item to check is the URL itself: did you type it in correctly? In the example above, the URL was simply typed in wrong, happens to the best of us! Check if you are able to browse the URL currently, the website could be down.		
					Site loading too slow				
		Scanner ignores pages that load too slow—after all we have lots of scanning to do! If the first page we try to scan on your site takes 40-50 seconds to load, we abort the scan. (Modern websites do not load this slow unless there's a problem!) Be sure to check the URL you want us to scan if we report that Tag Inspector is unable to.		
					Check robots.txt values				
		The robots.txt file is a plain text file added to a website that instructs the behavior of crawlers/spiders. The file is created by the webmaster to tell these robots (usually search engines) which pages to scan and which they cannot. Spidering is a necessary tool for search engines to index content so it can be served up to users later. Spiders sound bad, but they are good!Tag Inspector is a crawler/spider that observes the robots.txt file. We will follow the instructions of the file exactly, and if the file tells us to not crawl, we will not! (Note that spiders used for nefarious purposes will not bother observing the robot.txt file ... bad spiders!)The robots.txt file can be found on any website by going to the URL followed by /robots.txt which must be in lower case, here's what it would look like: www.example.com/robots.txtThe file is in plain text and will call out specific crawlers (agents) or all crawlers. It will list specific instructions to crawl or not crawl specific pages, or do not crawl any pages at all. The file itself looks like this:		
																														
		User Agent " * " means all "agents" or all robot crawlers. So in this example above, the robots.txt file is telling all crawlers which pages on the site to crawl or not crawl.		
																														
		If the robots.txt file read like this, then it would be telling all agents not to crawl the entire URL, including Tag Inspector.
The fix is to edit the robots.txt to specifically allow the Tag Inspector robot to crawl your entire website, and if you didn't want any other spiders crawling your website the robot.txt would look like this:User-agent: *Disallow: /User-agent: TagInspectorAllow: /
If you are unsure about the language in the robots.txt file, or how to edit it, contact your webmaster for help, and we can always take a look and see if it could be causing a problem with Tag Inspector.

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Tag Inspector
Frequently Asked Questions

Overview

Functionality and Features

Getting Started with Scans

Troubleshooting and Support

Data-Driven Solutions

Trusted technologies.

Tailored Solutions

Resources

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Talk To Us

Receive Book Updates

Search InfoTrust

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Data-Driven Solutions

Trusted technologies.Proven performance.

Tailored Solutions for Key Roles and Industries

Insights, Guides, and Case Studies to Level Up Your Strategy

Tag InspectorFrequently Asked Questions

Overview

Functionality and Features

Getting Started with Scans

Troubleshooting and Support

Data-Driven Solutions

Trusted technologies.

Tailored Solutions

Resources

Get Your Assessment

Talk To Us

Receive Book Updates

Search InfoTrust

Leave Us A Review

Trusted technologies.
Proven performance.

Tag Inspector
Frequently Asked Questions