Question

I’m setting up a site whose entire purpose is essentially a landing page. This page will create a cookie when the user fills out the proper form. To handle cookies I’m using this jquery plugin.

My problem is, I have a separate site that should only be able to be viewed if the user has the cookie from the first site (the landing page). So far, in my testing, I have been having trouble since the cookie that I set at my landing page doesn’t appear on the other site. The landing page is being tested on localhost, but the site that requires the user to have the cookie before viewing is live on the internet.

Here is how I set the cookie:

$('#submit')[0].addEventListener("click", $.cookie("test-cookie", "test-value"));

Then, at the other site I have something like this to check the cookie:

var cookie = $.cookie("test-cookie");
if (cookie != null && cookie != "") {
    console.log("TRUE");
} else {
    window.location = "http://www.thelandingpagesite.com";
}

Now, I’m not sure if the problem is with cookies (I don’t know if they can be so easily transfered between sites, as far as I am aware of, they exist on the Users computer), or if I’m just setting it up wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Answer 1

As far as I am aware, one site (www.example.com) cannot retrieve cookies from a browser for another site (www.Second-example.com).

It would be a major security breach if this was allowed as it would be very easy for someone to steal your cookie and gain access to your accounts and personal details.

I am afraid you are going to have to use some mechanism other than cookies.

You could store their IP as you suggest in a a comment on another answer. Just be aware that anyone on that Lan could access the page… for example if a student in a school fills out your form… the whole school would have access to the page you are trying to restrict.