What Is a CORS Policy Error and How Does It Affect Visual Visitor Tracking?

What Is a CORS Policy Error and How Does It Affect Visual Visitor Tracking?

A CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) policy error occurs when a browser blocks a script or API call from a different domain than the one the page is hosted on. This can affect Visual Visitor tracking in specific scenarios where click-tracking or attribution needs to share data across domains. 

When does CORS affect Visual Visitor?

 

·       Cross-domain UTM tracking: If you are running an email campaign and the AI Sales Rep email links go through a third-party redirect or tracking URL (different domain than your website), the referral data may not pass correctly due to CORS restrictions. Solution: ensure your AI Sales Rep call-to-action links go directly to your website URL with UTM parameters appended, not through an intermediate redirect domain.

 

·       Click attribution in multi-domain setups: If your business uses multiple domains (e.g., a marketing landing page domain and a main product domain), CORS restrictions may prevent Visual Visitor from linking visitor sessions across those domains. Install a separate tracking script on each domain.

 

·       Third-party script loading: Some site builders or CSPs may block the Visual Visitor script's API calls back to Visual Visitor servers due to CORS. In this case, the script loads but the data cannot be transmitted. Check the browser console for CORS error messages.

 

How to diagnose a CORS issue

 

1.     Open your website in a browser and open Developer Tools (F12 > Console tab).

 

2.     Look for any red error messages that include CORS or Cross-Origin.

 

3.     If CORS errors reference the Visual Visitor domain, contact Visual Visitor Support with the full error message so the team can investigate and provide the correct CORS configuration.

 

Most customers never encounter CORS issues - this primarily affects advanced multi-domain or custom implementation setups.



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