Age verification

A modal that must be answered before the store can be used: your logo or wordmark, a question, a confirm button and a decline link. Unlike the Promo popup it genuinely blocks — there is no close button, Escape does not dismiss it, and clicking the backdrop does nothing.

It is off by default. Switch it on only if your products actually require it.

Where to find it

Like the promo popup, this section is rendered from the theme layout rather than from a template, so it covers every page of the store. An age gate that only guards the homepage is walked straight past by anyone who follows a link to a product. In the theme editor you will find it near the bottom of the section list, on whichever page you are editing.

Settings

Setting	Type	Default	What it does
Enabled	Checkbox	false	Master switch. Nothing renders until this is on.
Remember for	Range, 1–90 d, step 1	30	How long a confirmation is remembered before the visitor is asked again.
Version	Text	1	Change this to ask everyone again, including people whose confirmation has not yet expired.
Logo	Image	—	Shown at the top of the gate, up to 180 px wide. With nothing set, the brand name from theme settings — or the store name — is shown as a wordmark instead.
Heading	Inline rich text	Are you old enough?	The question.
Text	Text	You must be of legal age in your country to enter this store.	The explanation, capped at a 44-character measure.
Confirm label	Text	I am old enough	The confirm button.
Decline label	Text	Take me back	The decline link.
Decline goes to	URL	—	Where someone under age is sent. Leave it empty and they are sent to a search engine (google.com).
Note	Text	—	A small muted footnote under the buttons — the place for a legal line or a jurisdiction note.

No blocks. One preset, Age verification.

How the pass is remembered

When a visitor confirms, an expiry timestamp of now + remember_days is written to their browser storage under a key that includes the Version string. On every later page view the gate checks that timestamp:

• In the future — the gate does not open at all.
• Passed, or absent — the gate opens and asks again.

So remember_days is a real expiry, not a session flag: at 30, a returning customer is asked roughly once a month. Changing Version changes the key, which invalidates every stored pass at once — use it if your wording or your legal threshold changes and you need everyone to re-confirm.

The record is per browser and per device, and nothing is stored on your server or attached to a customer record.

Why it is opened by script, not rendered open

The gate is rendered closed and opened by the theme’s own script. That is deliberate: a gate that blocks the whole store and cannot be answered is worse than no gate at all, so if the script does not run — an error, a very old browser, a blocked file — the visitor sees the store rather than a wall they cannot get past.

Two other consequences of it being a real modal dialog:

• Focus goes to the confirm button when it opens, so the keyboard answer is a single press.
• Escape is explicitly cancelled, so a keyboard user cannot step past the gate the way they can dismiss the promo popup. Page scrolling is locked while it is open.

Setting one up

1. Upload your logo, or leave it empty to use the wordmark.
2. Write the question and the explanation. Name the legal threshold if your market has a specific one.
3. Set decline_url to somewhere real and sensible — never leave a declining visitor at a dead end.
4. Set remember_days. Thirty is a reasonable balance between nuisance and diligence.
5. Switch enabled on and test it in a fresh private window, then test the decline link.

Caution

A self-declared age gate is a deterrent, not verification. If your category requires real age checks in a market you sell into, you need a verification service at checkout as well — this section does not satisfy that on its own. Check what your jurisdiction actually requires before you rely on it.

Caution

Switching this on costs you organic traffic and some conversion on every single page, so only enable it if your products require it. Signal is an apparel and gear theme; most stores on it should leave this off.

Tip

Leave the footnote for the legal line and keep the heading short. “Are you old enough?” with “You must be of legal age in your country to enter this store” underneath reads as a check; three paragraphs of terms in the gate itself reads as a wall, and people leave rather than read it.