Age Verification Popup: How to Add One to Your Website in a Few Clicks

What Is an Age Verification?

Website age verification is a simple widget that lets you set up a page load popup to determine the visitors' ages. It can assist you in making your content accessible to individuals who are of legal age. The first reason for using website age verification is to prevent children from accessing content or purchasing products for adults. Reason two is that dealing with age-sensitive products, you must comply with laws and regulations introduced by legal institutions within your region.

We’ll figure out how this simple tool can save your business and reputation, explain the types of website age verification and provide instructions on how to add age verification to the website, both with and without coding knowledge. Let’s get started.

What is Age Verification For a Website?

Website age verification is a measure of technical protection used to restrict access to digital content for those who haven’t reached a certain age. Examples of digital content that is usually restricted are online stores that sell tobacco and alcohol, video streaming platforms, online movie theaters, social media, gambling, and online gaming services. If you offer services like this, you might have thought of implementing age verification for your website or used it for a while.

When Does a Website Need Age Verification?

To illustrate why it’s important to introduce website age verification to avoid problems with the law and save your reputation, we’ll bring some numbers.

• According to the US National Center for Education Statistics, about 90 percent of American children and adolescents use the Internet.
• Statista reports that more than 18 percent of all children in the US have access to online communications media content. For Egypt and Russian Federation this number makes 35 and 28 percent respectively.
• A survey by Pew Research revealed that 65 percent of parents worry about their kids spending too much time in front of screens.

In other words, the first reason for using website age verification is to prevent children from accessing content or purchasing products meant for adults. 

Reason number two is that dealing with age-sensitive products, you must comply with laws and regulations introduced by legal institutions within your region. Violating these rules can entail fines or even imprisonment.

When Does a Website Need Age Verification?

Age verification is necessary for websites that offer age-sensitive products like alcohol and cigarettes, adult-only video content, online games, and other things. Distributing these goods and laws established by state institutions regulates related content.

So, here are the two major cases in which you usually need to introduce age verification on your website.

1. You distribute content or goods that are not meant for minors.
2. The law of your country requires age confirmation.

For example, in the US selling tobacco products (including hookah and e-cigarettes) to consumers under 21 y.o. is prohibited ​​by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). To learn how to comply with these rules, retailers operating in this niche can check for detailed information on the FDA's official website.

Moreover, a simple age verification popup may need to be revised to comply with industry regulations. Most states in the US require that a consumer present a valid government-issued ID to prove their age when they buy alcoholic drinks. 

The world of online entertainment is no different. In the US, the consumption of online content by users under the age of 13 is limited by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (COPPA). Similar restrictions are imposed in the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Both regulations limit the collection of personally identifiable information from underaged people without their parent’s consent.

Types of Website Age Verification

There are several age verification popups, and they vary from primary birth date verification to more advanced techniques like AI-powered face recognition. 

A regular age verification popup usually looks like this.

A regular age verification popup example

Creative age verification popup example

Depending on the time and place, a website age verification may be displayed:

• on the landing page;
• at the checkout.

Depending on the industry requirements and local regulations, you may request a user’s birthdate only or go further and ask for personal details like the address or require uploading an ID photo, as shown in the example below.

Verification photo id popup example

More sophisticated ways to restrict minors from accessing your website include credit card verification.

Regardless of the age verification method you opt for, ensure that your Privacy Policy clearly states the purpose of such data collection.

Age Verification Popup Examples

In this article, we are dealing with age verification popups specifically. So, we’ve collected age gate examples used by the so-called adult-only websites.

You can check the visitor's age by querying only the birth year. The widget will automatically calculate the visitor's age. Site content will be hidden behind a background image during verification until the user confirms that they are of legal age.

Age verification popup example

Age verification popup example

There is no need to ask users for their exact ages. You can just add two buttons: confirm or not confirm.

Age verification popup example

Age verification popup example

As you can see, different types of age verification popups usually convey the same idea. Generally, the main differences boil down to the completeness of the text (mentioning Terms of Use and Privacy Policy or not, providing supplementary information for parents, etc.), the style of a popup layout, and its UI elements (buttons and checkboxes).

How to Add Free Age Verification to Your Website

In a nutshell, there are two ways of introducing age verification for websites. One requires a bit of coding, while the other uses no-code templates provided by various popups services. 

Code-based method

It’s no surprise that after browsing for a while, you’ll find some free age verification HTML code examples once written to help owners of age-sensitive websites protect underaged users and themselves. This method can work if you have basic code knowledge and search for a free age verification tool. Free code samples for adding age verification are available in online communities for testers and discussion forums for programmers. 

If you are not familiar with coding, have no intention of involving developers in the process of popup creation, or don’t feel like doing extra work, plenty of ready-to-use solutions come with popup services.

Using pop-up services

So, if you seek a ready-made solution to introduce age verification on your website, there are several popup services you can choose from.

Striving to create an easy-to-use solution that would help businesses solve the online age verification issue, we created Claspo. This free popup builder uses simple drag-and-drop logic to create informative and valuable forms and messages. Its main benefit is that to create a component (like a free age verification popup), you can choose among the ready-made solutions or involve developers to develop a custom one if you wish. In the latter case, further re-use of the component created will not require any modifications to the code.

As you see, with many options available on the market, it’s easy to choose a solution that satisfies your aims and tastes with website age verification.

How to Сreate a Pop-Up with Сlaspo

Let's try out the features of the Claspo editor in more detail.

1. Get started

To get started, auto-login on the site using mail. Then click on the New Widget button.

We turn to the choice of templates. Use the filters to make the right choice.

The first filter is the use case: 

• collect user data;
• inform users;
• promote special offers and others.

When you select one of the items, the system automatically selects templates that meet these requirements.

2. Choose the layout

The second filter is the layout. Currently, there are 6 types available.

3. Choose the industry

The following filter is the industry. Here you can select the area of your project. It can be Business, Charity, Electronics, Entertainment, and many others. And the last filter is the theme.

4. Edit the widget

To proceed to edit the widget, select one. You can see how the widget is displayed for the mobile and desktop versions and select the launcher that opens this form.

5. Select a template and turn to the editor

Select a template and turn to the editor. Several containers are available in the editor. Here you can change the width and height of the widget, and the location of other elements, set the content style, and propagate it to all variants in desktop and mobile versions. You can place align inner elements horizontally or vertically and choose the spacing between the elements.

6. Choose the widget triggering

You can turn to the preview to see how the widget will be displayed on the site. Choose widget statuses, language, display on different devices, and Window size. It can be a fixed size or a device size.

Then, save the widget and move on to Widget triggering. Choose Display frequency and When to display the widget. Next, you can connect the placement of the widget using API. To select a different rule, contact Claspo support. You can also select Integrations.

7. Check the result

After saving, you see your widget in the library. To display it, you need to display a widget on your site. You don’t have to put code on the site with a script because it increases its loading speed. All codes will be located on the Claspo servers.

How to Use Age Verification to Avoid Problems?

Age verification is a must if you operate in an age-sensitive niche and aim to make your website compliant with laws and regulations issued by legal institutions. Verifying your visitors’ age can occur when they start browsing or are about to check out. Violating these rules can entail fines or even imprisonment.

Age verification popups are extensively used to restrict underage users from accessing your website. Such popups usually convey the same idea, i.e., warn customers about the age restrictions introduced on your website. Depending on your preferences and local authorities official requirements, you may supply your age verification pop up with additional information for parents or provide a link to your Terms of Use.

When adding age verification to the website, you usually come across solutions that involve some coding and those that come out of the box. To make the right choice, analyze your needs with such popups and evaluate how each available solution can help you achieve them.