What is the s_vnc cookie?
Stores the total number of visits by a unique user within a specified time period for Adobe Analytics reporting.
Table of Contents
About s_vnc
| Vendor | Adobe |
|---|---|
| Category Category The functional category of the technology, such as Web Analytics or Social Media. Learn more | Web Analytics |
| Consent Category Consent Category The consent category this cookie most commonly falls under across sites we scan, normalized into four standard categories. Learn more | Strictly Necessary |
| Prevalence | Very Common |
| Popularity Popularity Popularity is calculated from our dataset of 4.5B+ cookies analyzed across hundreds of millions of web pages. Learn more | Found on 10.4% of scanned pages |
| Expiration Type | Timestamp |
| Expiration Duration | 30 days |
| Party Type Party Type Whether the cookie is first-party or third-party. Learn more | 1st-Party |
| Risk Level Risk Level Rates how sensitive the data stored by this cookie is (High, Medium, or Low) based on data classification and distribution. Learn more | Low |
| Vendor Privacy Policy | https://www.adobe.com/privacy/policy.html |
| Vendor Website | https://www.adobe.com/ |
What is the purpose of s_vnc?
This cookie is set by the getVisitNum plug-in within an Adobe Analytics implementation. It is used to track the number of visits a user makes to the website over a defined period (e.g., 365 days, represented by the 365 in the cookie name). The cookie's value contains a Unix timestamp indicating when the visit counter will reset, along with the visitor's current visit count (e.g., &vn=1). This enables website owners to analyze visit frequency, distinguish new versus returning visitors, and gain deeper insights into user engagement over time.
What are the Privacy Risks of s_vnc?
Risk Level: Low
This cookie solely stores a timestamp and an integer to count how many times a user has visited the site. It does not contain any cross-site tracking IDs or personally identifiable information (PII). Because it functions strictly as a localized counter to support first-party analytics, it poses a minimal privacy risk to users.
How to Remove s_vnc from a Website
To stop setting the s_vnc* cookie, website administrators must disable or remove the getVisitNum plug-in from their Adobe Analytics implementation. If Adobe Analytics is deployed via Experience Platform Data Collection (formerly Adobe Launch), administrators can remove the 'Common Web SDK Plugins' or 'Common Analytics Plugins' extension, or remove the specific action that initializes getVisitNum in their tag rules. If the plug-in was implemented manually, developers must edit the custom code in the AppMeasurement.js file to delete the getVisitNum function and any calls to it. If the built-in visit number dimension in Analysis Workspace is sufficient, administrators can safely remove this custom plug-in without impacting core tracking functionality.