Bounce tracking is a technique where a tracker site acts as an intermediary redirect. Instead of linking directly to a destination, the link goes through a tracking domain that sets cookies before redirecting the user to the final destination.
Normal navigation:
User → site-a.com → site-b.com
Bounce tracking:
User → site-a.com → tracker.com (sets cookie!) → site-b.com
Modern browsers detect this pattern and can delete the tracker's storage (cookies, localStorage, etc.) to protect user privacy.
No referrer policy, no rel attributes. The destination site and any redirect
intermediaries can see where you came from.
Uses referrerpolicy="no-referrer" to hide the origin, but doesn't prevent
opener access.
Uses both referrerpolicy="no-referrer" and rel="noopener noreferrer"
for maximum privacy protection.
This section simulates what a bounce tracker would do — set cookies and storage during a brief redirect. Use DevTools to observe the storage being created.
Chrome flags to explore:
chrome://flags/#bounce-tracking-mitigations — Enable/disable the featurechrome://settings/cookies — Third-party cookie settingschrome://flags/#bounce-tracking-mitigations to see the feature status