Can One Domain Have Multiple Cookies?

Question

Can one domain generate multiple cookies on visitor's web browser? If so, when user vists the website, which cookies will be delivered to server? And why would a website generate multiple cookies?

I checked my Google Chrome Browser's Cookies settings, found that there are multiple cookies of nytimes.com.

If server wants to store multiple key/value pairs in cookies, can't they be stored in the same cookies?

Answer 1

Yes :)

I would speculate that the cookies were created by separate components of the website, which were created by separate teams of developers. We, of all people, should realize that this is often the case when we need to get some development done but do not have time to wait for collaboration or for another team to develop a necessary layer for us.

From wikipedia:

Relevant count of maximum stored cookies per domain for the major browsers are:

• Firefox 3.0: 50
• Opera 9: 30
• Internet Explorer 7: 50

Answer 2

Can one domain generate multiple cookies on visitor's web browser?

Yes. The exact limit depends on the browser, Internet Explorer used to accept 20 but increased this to 50.

If so, when user vists the website, which cookies will be delivered to server?

All of them

And why would a website generate multiple cookies?

So that you don't need to serialise all the data (which could be from unrelated parts of the system) in one cookie.