🚫 Blocking Scripts Before Consent: How It Works With Caching Plugins

Blocking is the part that makes the banner mean something. With it on, tracking scripts do not run until the visitor agrees to their group, and embedded videos and maps wait behind a placeholder.

Where to find it:

AiX Consent, Blocking tab. The first box is Holding trackers back. The placeholder wording is under The placeholder, and the five step test is under Checking it works.

How it works, in plain words:

Before a page leaves your server, the plugin looks through it for scripts that match a known service or one of your own patterns. Each match is parked: it stays in the page, but in a form the browser will not fetch or run. When a visitor accepts that script's group, the browser rebuilds it with its real address and it runs then.

Scripts come back in their original order, so a library still loads before the code that uses it. Returning visitors who already said yes get their scripts back on every page automatically.

Why it works with caching plugins:

The parked page is identical for every visitor, so a cached copy is correct for all of them. Whether the banner shows, and which scripts come back, is decided in each visitor's own browser from their own stored answer. Nothing about one person's choice is saved into the cached page.

After you first switch the banner or blocking on, clear your page cache once so older copies are replaced. The Diagnostics tab has a Page cache row that names the caching plugin it finds.

Holding trackers back:

This box has two switches and one menu.

• Block the services below until the visitor agrees to them. On from the start.
• Block embedded players and maps too, and show a placeholder in their place. On from the start.
• Pages that print themselves: Add the banner to them too (recommended), or Leave them completely alone.

Pages that print themselves are full pages from Free HTML Pages, Webinars rooms and List Builder pages, which skip WordPress's footer. With Add the banner to them too, a pixel pasted into one of those pages waits for a yes and then runs. With Leave them completely alone, those pages behave as they would without this plugin.

Videos and maps:

A blocked YouTube video, Vimeo video, map or other embed is replaced by a placeholder of the same height, so the page does not jump. It shows a message and a button. Pressing the button turns on just that one group and leaves every other answer alone, then the video appears.

On the Juniper Lane Pottery home page the studio video waits behind the message This content is hidden until you accept Marketing cookies, with an Accept and show it button.

The placeholder:

Two fields set the words.

• The message. Starts as This content is hidden until you accept {category} cookies.
• The button. Starts as Accept and show it.

{category} becomes the group name and {vendor} becomes the service name, for example This {vendor} video is hidden until you accept {category} cookies. Press Save blocking when done.

Checking it works:

The bottom of the Blocking tab walks you through a five step test.

1. Open your site in a private window, so you arrive with no stored answer.
2. Before touching the banner, open the browser's developer tools. Under Application, then Cookies, you should see almost nothing: your session, and the consent cookie once you answer.
3. Look at the page source for text/plain. Every parked script is there, with its real address sitting in data-rxc-src rather than in src.
4. Accept, and look again. The scripts come back, in their original order, and the cookies appear.
5. If something breaks, add ?rxc-no-block=1 to the address while signed in as an administrator. That switches the rewrite off for that one page load, for you only.

What blocking covers:

• Any script in your page's HTML that matches a rule, inline or with an address.
• Any embedded player or map that matches a rule.
• Google tags, through Consent Mode, even inside a tag manager.

For a script that another script writes into the page after it loads, or tracking that runs on a different server, govern it inside your tag manager through Consent Mode. Structured data and page templates are left untouched, and nothing is rewritten inside your WordPress admin.

A real example:

Juniper Lane Pottery's Shop page loads Stripe, Google Analytics and the Meta Pixel. Stripe runs straight away because it is set to Never block. Google Analytics waits for Analytics, and the Meta Pixel waits for Marketing. A visitor who picks Analytics only gets Google Analytics on their next click, and the pixel stays parked.

Tips:

• Use the Testing switch, ?rxc-no-block=1, whenever a page behaves oddly. It tells you in one load whether a blocking rule is involved.
• If a widget your visitors need is held back, set it to Never block on the Blocking tab, or move it to a group most people accept.

Next steps:

See Built-In Services List, Your Own Blocking Rules And The Testing Switch for the services table, and Google Consent Mode v2: Signals, Switches And Tag Manager for Google tags.