Blockade FAQ
How does Blockade work?
Blockade registers a script tag on your store's website. When a visitor opens your store's website, their browser loads the Blockade script.
This script will verify the visitor is allowed to access your store with the rules you have defined in the app.
If a visitor is not allowed to visit your store, the script will redirect them away from your store.
If a visitor is allowed to visit your store, then the script won't interfere with the experience whatsoever.
Will the app affect my SEO on Google?
No, Blockade registers a non-blocking script tag on your website. It loads independently of the rest of your website's content. It will not affect your pages load speeds to search engines.
Regardless if you're using the free or Professional Plan, Blockade will detection and automatically allow visits from Google, Facebook or Pintrest.
That way your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on your rankings with Google are unaffected.
Will the app slow down my website's load times?
No, the only change Blockade makes to your store front is adding an asynchronous script tag to your webpages.
This means that Blockade won't impede your customer's experience or slow down your website from loading.
Do I need to modify my store's theme in order to install the app?
No, unlike other apps on the Shopify App Store; Blockade does not require any other setup steps besides defining your rules in the app.
This means if you're unhappy with the app, you can just uninstall it and there are no other clean up steps.
Even adding a small script to the theme of your website introduces a risk for a mistake, we created a novel way to include the script without any extra steps on your part.
This makes installing Blockade simple and error free. We're proud to have the easiest blocking app on Shopify.
What is included in the free plan versus the Professional Plan?
The Blockade free plan allows you to:
- Block countries of your choosing in the app
- Block visitors using VPNs to mask their true IP address
- Allow friendly scrapers like Google, Facebook and Pintrest to index your site for search listings and ads
- View the traffic on your store from the past week and search it by country of origin
The Blockade Professional Plan gives you the above, but much more:
- Block specific IP addresses from accessing your store
- Block specific websites from accessing your store including datacenters like AWS, Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure
- Allow specific countries to visit your store
- Allow specific IP address to visit your store that override the blocking rules
- Allow known friendly websites to visit your store for scraping or indexing services
- Each blocking or allowing rule is easily disabled or enabled individually
The Professional Plan costs only $4.99 per month. You can cancel at any time.
Why do I see visits from blocked countries in my analytics?
Unfortunately due to Shopify's restrictions on apps, Blockade can only run on the frontend of your store.
Blockade works by detecting the visitor's location, IP address and other details once the page has been loaded.
This means that Blockade runs at the same time as your analytics scripts that record your stores visits.
Although the visit might be recorded, on average Blockade acts within 500 miliseconds. So analytics might track a visit, but it will be very short visits.
There's a dedicated help article here that explains how Blockade works and why you still might see blocked visitors in your analytics but they were still blocked from visiting your store's pages.
Why are blocked visitors still visible in my stores analytics?
How do I block my own country but still access it?
Note: the allowed IP addresses list is a pro feature. Upgrade your plan in the app to access it.
Good news. With Blockade you can block your own country and still access your own storefront while the rest of your country cannot.
- Add your country to the countries block list and make sure the block list is enabled
- Add your IP address to the allowed IP addresses list and make sure the it is enabled
You can use the Current IP Address link in the IP address allowed list pop up to automatically add your current IP address.
That's it! Open your store's website and you should be able to view it without being blocked.
Will you sell my traffic?
No. We do not sell our customers information. We offer the free tier as a trial offering, but if you're happy with the service please consider supporting us by purchasing the Professional Plan.