Workaround for Age Verification: Geo Blur Images – WordPress Plugin
 

https://i.ibb.co/tMLvq2vZ/geo-blur-i...screenshot.png

As a temporary workaround for Age Verification (AV) check on WordPress sites, I created a lightweight plugin that automatically blurs all JPG images on a website based on the visitor's location. It's completely SEO friendly, and does not block search engine bots from crawling pages.

You can download it here.

It can be used temporarily, until more permanent AV check solution is implemented.

The plugin uses MaxMind GeoLite2 database (Cities files), and you need to download it and replace empty placeholder file(s) provided.

== Description ==
This plugin is ideal for websites that need to obscure image content based on legal or regional restrictions, such as:
- Age-restricted content.
- Geo-targeted campaigns.
- Legal compliance in specific jurisdictions.

== Features ==
- Detects country and US state using the MaxMind GeoLite2 database.
- Simple admin settings panel to choose target countries/states.
- Blurs all .jpg images, even those loaded via CDN or external URLs.
- Uses CSS blur filter (no image replacement or delay).
- Performance-friendly — only activates for targeted users.
- Easily extendable — feel free to build on it.

== Installation ==
- Upload the plugin to /wp-content/plugins/geo-blur-images/
- Activate it via the WordPress Plugins menu.
- Download and place the MaxMind GeoLite2 City database in the /MaxMind/ directory (the provided file is just a placeholder). You’ll need to create a MaxMind account and download the GeoLite2-City.mmdb file.

== How it works ==
- On page load, PHP checks the visitor’s IP and matches it with the GeoLite2 database.
- If the user is in a targeted country or state, all .jpg images are blurred using CSS.
- No server-side image processing is involved.

Please feel free to reuse the code or improve it. Sharing your modifications is more than welcome! You can reuse it for any kind of projects, not necessarily just Wordpress.The plugin is submitted to Wordpress.org and will be available upon approval.

If anyone has a complete list of ISO country codes or US state names for blocking, please share them in the comments below.

So far I was able to find the following:

Countries (ISO 3166-1 codes): UK,FR,DE,IT
U.S. States (2-letter abbreviations): LA,AR,VA,UT,MT,TX,NC,IN,ID,FL,KY,NE,GA,AL,KS,OK,MS ,SC,TN,SD,WY,MO
(You can add those codes to the plugin admin menu.)

Countries:
United Kingdom
France
Germany
Italy

US States:
Alabama
Arkansas
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Montana
Nebraska
North Carolina
Oklahoma
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Wyoming

Please let me know if something was missed.

Might as well add North Dakota to the list. That goes into effect Aug 1st. Quick and easy solution for wp users that are still deciding on which provider to integrate, good job! :thumbsup

*That db is not the best, it won't catch all the locations, but otherwise for now, it's a good start.

Edit: Customer still needs to be age verified if/when they join/pay.

Thank you!

I'm not a programmer and it's Sunday night. Somebody more skilled better be tweaking that code and fix it. :1orglaugh

P.S. At some point I broke the code while trying to make it more compliant for Wordpress.org submission. It's too late already to have another look today. If no one else fixes it in the meantime, I'll have a look tomorrow and fix it myself.

If you look into the laws even linking with plain text to adult sites is covered, especially if the focus of your site is on enticing.

Version 1.0.1 uploaded. Issues fixed. The code should work now. Background images added, as well.

List updated with North Dakota:

Countries (ISO 3166-1 codes):*UK,FR,DE,IT
U.S. States (2-letter abbreviations): LA,AR,VA,UT,MT,TX,NC,IN,ID,FL,KY,NE,GA,AL,KS,OK,MS ,SC,TN,SD,WY,MO,ND

So true, but say that to Google. :winkwink:

I haven't looked at it or downloaded, so not sure if you already have done so. But, personally, I would add a disclaimer somewhere that does not hold you responsible for ANYTHING before allowing anyone to download/use the plugin. People are sue happy

Google is exempt with the 33% rule in the ones I've checked.

What happens if a user clicks on an image and loads the full size version which is not served via Wordpress? So for example it basically loads the domain.com/images/hottie-1.jpg directly.. then it won't be blurred. :(

I was also thinking about this...


and with this set up, i take it, the images stay blurred and some people would rather pay an AVS for a quid and see the free images :2 cents:

I have never in history PAID to use an AVS. This is always covered by the site operator, are you seriously trying to waste the time your customers are pulling out credit cards to have them fill that information in for a completely different company? Then expecting them to return to give you money too?

Exactly what % of traffic do you think would drop off from that insane process?

:1orglaugh

Url redirection for non registered users ?

The issue I see is that anyone can just remove the filter: blur() from the inspector and see everything. I'm sure people are already coming up with Chrome and Firefox extensions to remove that filter.

Do you have a github of the plugin? Myabe I can take a look and see if there's a way to fork it to use an image library in the background to blur the images server side.

well for my blog personally, it´s not insane to get verified for 2 quid and then see all my free content, pics, clips and erotic stories...


for ModelCentro sites, I can´t change the YOTI verification & again, it needs paying, so that´s just what my British traffic is going to have to do....


and it´s the government that´s insane, not the process that I have adapted on my blog or websites :2 cents:

So far all they seem to care about is how the page renders. They are never going to be able to stop tech savy users from figuring out ways to bypass.

I've been doing the same thing for mechbunny clients, so far so good. They are considered compliant. But if it comes down to it, I would make a path to request images that generates a blurred version and saves/caches it in a directory.