Type an address. This reads the page as a browser first receives it and reports whether a Consent Mode default is set before the tags load, and which consent banner is on it.
No sign-up. Reads one public page and reports the consent banner and Consent Mode default it can see in the HTML.
Which consent management platform the page loads, where the script is recognisable: Cookiebot, OneTrust, Usercentrics, CookieYes and others. A custom-built banner, or one injected later by a tag manager, will not be recognised, and the result says so rather than claiming there is none.
Whether a default consent state is set in the page before tags load. This is the part that matters most and the part most often missing: without a default, Google's tags have no instruction about what to do before a visitor chooses, which is the window where most of the damage happens.
The Google tags present on the page, which is the context the consent answer depends on. A missing default matters more on a page carrying GA4, Google Ads and a legacy Universal Analytics tag than on one carrying nothing.
The most common finding in real audits is a site where the banner works perfectly and nothing acts on the answer. Tags fire on page load regardless of what was clicked, because the banner and the gating are two separate pieces of configuration and only one of them is visible to anybody.
Which is the limit of what any external checker, this one included, can tell you. It can confirm a default exists and a banner loads. Whether each tag actually waits is a question you can only answer from inside the container.
Worth saying plainly, because a check that overstates itself is worse than no check.
The full audit connects to GTM read-only and answers the half this cannot: which tags carry a consent type, which fire before a choice is made, and what happens for somebody who declines. Scored A to F, with a free audit every month.
Run a free audit →For the full manual process, including how tags should be gated and what to check per region, see the consent mode audit guide. For the cookies themselves and how they should be classified, the cookie compliance audit guide. To see every tag in a public container rather than only what the page reveals, use GTM Inspector, and for what else is on the page, the Google Analytics checker.
Start with what is visible from outside: does the page set a Consent Mode default state before its tags load, and does it load a recognisable consent banner? This checker answers both from one public page with no sign-in. What it cannot answer is whether each tag is actually gated on that consent, because that configuration lives inside the GTM container and is only visible with read access to it.
An instruction that runs before any Google tag, telling it what to assume until the visitor chooses. Set the defaults to denied and tags hold back until consent arrives. Set nothing at all and the tags have no instruction for the window before the banner is answered, which on most sites is where a large share of traffic sits.
Partly, and this tool is that part. You can see the default state and the banner from the public page, which is enough to catch an outright missing default. Confirming that each tag waits for the right consent type needs the container, which is why the full audit asks for read-only access.
No, and the two are routinely confused. A banner collects a choice. Whether anything acts on that choice is a separate question, and setups where the banner works perfectly while the tags fire regardless are common. The banner is the visible half; the gating is the half that matters.
Most likely because it is configured inside Google Tag Manager rather than in the page HTML, which this check cannot see. That is a valid setup. The result is deliberately worded as not found rather than not present, for exactly this reason.