Safari 12, due this fall, will stop embedded like and share buttons and comment widgets recognising visitors unless they agree. Plain share links do the same job without loading anything, so most sites should switch to them.

What Apple announced on Monday

At its developer conference on Monday, Apple showed the next version of Safari, due this fall with iOS 12 and macOS Mojave.

Among the changes: like buttons, share buttons and comment widgets embedded in web pages will no longer be able to follow people from site to site without permission.

When a visitor tries to use one, Safari will ask whether that platform may use its cookies on the site. Apple calls the feature Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.0.

Safari comes on every iPhone, iPad and Mac, so for many small business sites this will reach a good share of visitors.

What those buttons do on every visit

The third is the one Apple is targeting. A visitor never has to touch the button for the platform to learn that they read the page.

What changes in Safari

Safari already limits some cross-site tracking. The new version goes further: embedded content from a domain Safari has classed as a tracker gets no access to its cookies unless the visitor allows it.

In practice, a like button will not know who is looking at it. To like or comment, the visitor may first see a prompt asking whether the platform can track their activity on your site.

Some visitors will allow it. Others will decline, or give up on the like they were about to give.

Advertising tags that follow visitors from site to site are likely to be affected as well, which is worth raising with whoever runs your ads.

The details may change before release, but the direction is clear enough to plan for.

Comment widgets

Comment systems run by social platforms work the same way: they load from the platform, recognise the logged-in visitor, and post under their profile.

In Safari, that recognition will need permission, which adds a step at exactly the moment somebody has decided to write something.

Comments also bring work: spam to remove, arguments to manage, and questions answered in public that would be better answered privately.

Most small business posts collect few comments anyway. A line at the end inviting questions by email or phone often brings more useful ones.

Share links do the same job

A plain share link is an ordinary link to the platform's sharing page, with your page's address included in it.

It loads nothing from the platform until it is clicked, so it tracks nobody, prompts nobody, and adds almost nothing to the page.

When it is clicked, the visitor arrives on the platform with your page ready to share, logged in as usual. For the visitor, the result is the same.

The links can be styled to match the site, as small icons or plain words in your own colours, rather than four differently shaped buttons from four companies.

On phones, many people never use a site's buttons at all. They share through the browser's own share menu, which works on every page whether it has buttons or not.

A worked example

A company running guided walking tours in the Okanagan publishes a short article for each route: the distance, the views, where to stop for lunch.

Each article carried four embedded buttons from different platforms and a comment widget. Most articles showed zero likes and no comments.

Between them, the buttons and the widget loaded scripts from five outside services on every article, before the visitor had read a word.

The company replaced them with three plain share links and a closing line inviting questions about the route.

The articles now load nothing from social platforms, show no zeros, and will behave the same in Safari this fall as they do today.

Counts that show zero

A share count is meant to be social proof. On a small business site it is usually the opposite: a row of zeros announcing that nobody has shared the page.

A count also has to be fetched from the platform on every page view, which adds to the weight described below.

Twitter removed the count from its own button in 2015. Plain links never had one, which on most sites is an advantage.

Speed and privacy

Each embedded button is a script, often several, fetched from somebody else's server before the page settles.

Removing them makes pages lighter, which matters most on a phone with a weak signal.

It also means fewer outside services setting cookies on your visitors. Since GDPR began applying last month, that is one less thing to explain to European visitors or to ask their consent for.

And it shortens the list of third parties your privacy policy has to describe.

Finding what your pages load

Share buttons usually arrive through a plugin or the theme, and they often appear on every page, including the contact page and the checkout, where nobody shares anything.

Ask whoever maintains the site which plugin adds them and which pages they appear on. Removing them is usually a setting, not a rebuild.

A web company can also list every outside service a page contacts in a few minutes, using the developer tools built into any desktop browser.

The counter-case

Not every site will want to drop them entirely.

A site whose audience really does live on one platform, such as a recipe or craft site whose readers save images to Pinterest, may justify one embedded button for that platform. Load only that one.

A business with an embedded comments section that hosts regular conversations may reasonably keep it and accept the extra step in Safari.

For most small business sites, though, the buttons cost speed and privacy and return little. Plain links keep the sharing and drop the rest.

Before the fall

  1. List the buttons on your article pages.
  2. Find the plugin or theme that adds them.
  3. Replace them with plain share links.
  4. Remove counts that mostly show zero.
  5. Reconsider the comment widget if comments are rare.
  6. Take buttons off contact and checkout pages.
  7. Update the privacy policy to match.

Step three is the change that matters, because a plain link keeps everything visitors use and drops everything Safari is about to restrict.

Choosing the tags that go with a shared post is covered in hashtags nobody searches.

Frequently asked questions

What did Apple announce for Safari?

Safari 12, due this fall, will stop embedded like and share buttons and comment widgets tracking people across sites unless the visitor gives permission.

What will visitors notice?

Embedded buttons and comment widgets will not recognise them at first. To like or comment, they may see a prompt asking whether the platform can track them.

What is a plain share link?

An ordinary link to the platform's sharing page with your page's address in it. It loads nothing until clicked, so it tracks nobody and prompts nobody.

Do share counts help?

Rarely on a small business site. Most show zeros, which announce that nobody has shared the page. Plain links have no counts to show.

Does this affect visitors on other browsers?

No. The change is in Safari. Plain links are still worth having, since they make pages lighter and cut the outside services setting cookies on every visitor.

Should I keep any embedded button?

Only where your audience really uses one platform heavily, such as Pinterest for recipe or craft sites. Load that single button and use plain links for the rest.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Share buttons on every page of your site?

List where they appear this week. We will replace them with plain links that keep the sharing and drop the tracking.

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