When setting up server-side tagging, the best practice was configuring a custom domain for your server Google Tag Manager environment. This approach primarily allows setting up first-party cookies, which have a longer lifespan than third-party cookies, enhancing user tracking and data collection consistency.
With the new restrictions coming from Safari, more than just setting up a custom domain is required to prolong cookie lifetime. Even if you map a custom domain, cookies in Safari will be shortened. To make it last longer, you must ensure the custom domain has the same IP address as your website’s primary domain by configuring Own CDN, or use stape Cookie Keeper power-up to store and restore cookies.
However, Google has recently changed the preferred way of mapping a custom domain for the server Google Tag Manager container. Instead of using a subdomain (like sgtm.example.com) they encourage using the same origin (like example.com/sgtm).
With the same origin custom domain for sGTM, you will have the main benefit of server-side tagging - setting up first-party cookies. And with the tagging server using the same origin domain, you do not need to configure any additional settings to prolong cookies. However, mapping the same origin will be more complicated than configuring a subdomain.
I will show two examples of configuring the same origin custom domain for sGTM using Cloudflare or nginx.
For this option to work all your site traffic must be proxied through CloudFlare. Thus, the functionality of CF Workers will allow you to proxy sGTM requests as well.
a. Create a worker in Cloudflare.
b. Add worker name and click Deploy.
c. In the worker settings, click 'Edit code’ and create js similar to the screenshot below, where:
/metrics/ - is a path you choose for your server container.
https://sgtm.stape.video/ - is your tagging server URL. There are two scenarios:
export default {
async fetch(request, env, ctx) {
let {pathname, search, host} = new URL(request.url);
pathname = pathname.replace('/metrics/', '/');
const domain = 'sgtm.stape.video';
let newRequest = new Request((`https://` + domain + pathname + search), request);
newRequest.headers.set('Host', domain);
return fetch(newRequest);
},
};Deploy and save changes.
d. Go to your sGTM worker -> Settings -> Domains & Routes and create a new Route. Add the URL you use for server GTM ending with *. In my case, it’s stape.video/metrics* and select your domain in zone selection.
e. Go to Rules -> Configuration Rules -> Create new rule:
- Specify any understandable rule name, e.g. ‘sGTM same origin’
- Custom filter expression
- URl Path equals ‘/metrics’ (change to your origin if you’re using a different one)
- SSL -> select option ‘Full’
Deploy Rule.
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If you use Ngnix you can configure all the same things quite easily with it and do without using Cloudflare.
Add to your server config, where:
/metrics - path you selected for server GTM.
https://gtm.mysimple.name - custom domain of your sGTM.
location = /metrics { return 302 /metrics/; }
location ~ ^/metrics(.*) {
resolver 8.8.8.8 valid=3600s;
proxy_pass https://gtm.mysimple.name$1$is_args$args;
proxy_set_header Host gtm.mysimple.name;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
}We've got you covered! Click Get help, fill-up the form, and we will send you a quote.