Is there a best practice for how to set up an Age Restriction prompt for a website (vape equiptment)

[RandolphMorris]

I am working on a website that sells vape equipment and supplies and is required to have an age restriction (birthday) prompt in order to enter the site. Is there a 'best practice' way to implement this?

[GlobeRunner]

Chris, we typically recommend that you would identify Google's bot(s) and not serve up the notice to Googlebot. You can certainly also set up a popup (popover) that shows the first time someone visits within a certain period of time--and then not show it on subsequent visits. So Google would get it the first time, and maybe not get it again for another 10 days or 30 days.

[RandolphMorris]

Hi Eric, Thank you for your answer. I should have been mnore specific in how I phrased the question. I am looking for a best practice from an SEO perspective. Is there a standard way to ensure the google spider can reach this content? Maybe turn off the prompt if a certain signature is present but not sure if might be penalized if content is modified based on spider signature.

[GlobeRunner]

There are restrictions for certain locations,  based on what I see in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_electronic_cigarettes.  You may need to find the laws in your location and see what's required in your location.

As for a standard text or other popup, if your country doesn't require it, you may not need to have a popup (or you may need to determine the user's location based on their IP address and have it popup for certain users only). For standard text, I would look at some of your competitors to see if what they are doing--and consult your attorney or lawyer to make sure your business is compliant (they may provide you with the text to use).