# Can Piwik PRO Track the Same User Across Multiple Domains Without Link Referrals?

**URL:** <https://community.piwik.pro/t/can-piwik-pro-track-the-same-user-across-multiple-domains-without-link-referrals/5204>\
**Category:** Data collection and tags\
**Created:** [June 7, 2025, 7:56pm UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/can-piwik-pro-track-the-same-user-across-multiple-domains-without-link-referrals/5204 "2025-06-07T19:56:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Tuhin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tuhin](https://community.piwik.pro/u/Tuhin)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2025, 7:56pm UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/can-piwik-pro-track-the-same-user-across-multiple-domains-without-link-referrals/5204/1 "2025-06-07T19:56:40Z")

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Hi everyone,

We’re currently testing a setup where we track multiple websites (e.g., `xyz.net`, `abcd.net`, and `abcde.ca`) **using a single Piwik PRO container**.

Here’s our exact setup:

- We’ve added all domains under **one site/app address** in the Piwik PRO settings.
- We are using the **same tracking code (tag manager container)** on each domain.
- We **did not configure cross-domain linking manually** (e.g., no URL parameter passing or visitor ID override).
- Users are visiting these sites **directly** , not through links between the domains.

🔍 **What we’re observing:**  
The **same Visitor ID is being generated across all domains** — even when accessed independently. This suggests that Piwik PRO is somehow maintaining user identification across domains with this configuration.

* * *

🧩 **Our main question:**

**Is this behavior expected and supported by Piwik PRO as a valid method for identifying users across multiple domains — even without referral links or manual ID sync?**

We’re especially interested in:

- Whether this is **reliable long-term** , or if we’re just seeing temporary behavior due to shared cookies or caching.
- Whether **browser privacy features** (e.g., Safari ITP, Firefox ETP, Chrome’s partitioned cookies) will block or eventually interfere with this method.
- Any **official guidance** or best practices from Piwik PRO for multi-domain user identification without requiring referral linking.

If anyone has experience with this setup or feedback from Piwik PRO support/docs, we’d love to hear it!

Thanks in advance!

 ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/uploads/piwikpro/original/2X/6/67c88f22061aecd0ddd5fe82484ce1e4918aec3b.png)

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**Author:** ![jfidala](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/community.piwik.pro/jfidala/32/4263_2.png) [@jfidala](https://community.piwik.pro/u/jfidala)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2025, 9:53am UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/can-piwik-pro-track-the-same-user-across-multiple-domains-without-link-referrals/5204/2 "2025-06-09T09:53:18Z")

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Hello @Tuhin and welcome to the community.

It’s possible that you have session hash turned on and based on your parameters Piwik PRO detected that you are same visitor. If you visited website A and visit website B while all parameters used by session hash are the same and there’s no bigger difference between two events than 30 minutes your session will be continued meaning you’re be the same visitor, but only from the perspective of that session as session hash only works for session recognition and not returning visitor recognition

You mentioned that there are no links between domains, but you still want to identify same users. For that I suggest setting up userID if it’s possible to get unique identifier:

> **[Set up a user ID | Piwik PRO help center](https://help.piwik.pro/support/getting-started/userid/)**
>
> A User ID is an additional piece of information that can be collected on your site. It can be the same user ID used in your CMS, CRM or sales system. By collecting this information, you can create a segment and view all sessions associated with a...

Here is article that explains different scenarios for counting sessions:

> **[What are sessions and how are they counted? | Piwik PRO help center](https://help.piwik.pro/support/questions/what-are-sessions-and-how-are-they-counted/)**
>
> A session is a visit to your site or app by a single visitor. It consists of events like page views, downloads, outlinks, custom events, goal conversions, ecommerce conversions and so on. To identify events performed by the same person in one...

To answer your questions directly:  
**- is it reliable long term?** it depends on your setup and tech stack your users are using. It’s as reliable as session hash mechanism. There are rare situations where many users visit someone website from one IP with same system, and same computer setup - in that case they might be detected at one user  
**- browser privacy features** - yes they might interfere with visitor ID based on cookie, but most of them shouldn’t interfere with session hash

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tuhin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tuhin](https://community.piwik.pro/u/Tuhin)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2025, 5:52pm UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/can-piwik-pro-track-the-same-user-across-multiple-domains-without-link-referrals/5204/3 "2025-06-09T17:52:06Z")

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How about if they visit after site A then after a week or month visit site B ? Will it recognize as same user?

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**Author:** ![jfidala](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/community.piwik.pro/jfidala/32/4263_2.png) [@jfidala](https://community.piwik.pro/u/jfidala)\
**Post date:** [June 10, 2025, 6:00am UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/can-piwik-pro-track-the-same-user-across-multiple-domains-without-link-referrals/5204/4 "2025-06-10T06:00:24Z")

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@Tuhin Methods above use internal mechanisms to detect it’s same user in one session. UserID would be better solution in your case if it’s possible to assign some unique identifier for each user.
