Trust badge not showing on Shopify: causes and fixes

You installed a trust badge app, set up a badge and saved it. The app says the badge is live. Your product page shows nothing. In reviews and forum threads about badge apps, this complaint comes up again and again, across many apps and themes.

Between a badge app and your store sit a few switches in your theme, and each of them can stop a badge. Work through the causes below in order. The first checks take a minute, the later ones need a closer look.

How a badge gets into your theme

Apps add content to an Online Store theme through theme app extensions. These come in two kinds of blocks, and most badge apps use one or both:

• App embeds work for the whole theme. One switch in the theme editor turns them on, and they can place content on many pages at once, for example a badge under every buy button.
• App blocks sit in one section of one template, like any other block you add in the theme editor. You choose their position by hand.

If neither is active in the theme your store shows, the app can be set up correctly and the store still shows nothing.

Cause 1: the app embed is switched off

Shopify's developer documentation is clear on this point: app embed blocks are deactivated after an app is installed. You switch them on yourself, and the step is easy to miss when you set up an app in a hurry.

To switch the embed on:

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store.
2. On your current theme, click Edit theme.
3. In the sidebar of the theme editor, click the App embeds icon.
4. Turn on the toggle next to your badge app, then click Save.

Reload a product page in a new browser tab. If the badge appears, you are done.

Cause 2: you changed or edited another theme

The theme editor can open any theme in your library, not only the one your store shows. A badge block you add to an unpublished theme stays there until you publish that theme. Check the name of the theme at the top of the theme editor: it should be the theme marked as current under Online Store.

If you recently published a different theme, the setup did not move with you. The Shopify Help Center says that apps you set up for one theme need to be activated again after you change your published theme. Repeat the step from cause 1 in the new theme, and add any app blocks again.

Cause 3: the block is missing from the template a product uses

An app block lives in one template. Shopify lets you create several templates for products, for example one for bundles and one for regular products. Each product uses the template chosen under Theme template on its page in the admin.

If you added the badge block to the default product template, products with another template show no badge. To fix it:

1. Open the product in your admin and note its Theme template.
2. In the theme editor, pick that template in the menu at the top of the page.
3. Add the app block to the product section of that template and save.

Some sections cannot hold app blocks at all. Shopify's help notes that some theme sections might not support them. If the theme editor does not offer your app in a section, choose another section, or use a placement through the app embed instead.

Cause 4: the badge does not match the page you test

Badge apps can limit where a badge shows. That is useful, and it is a frequent reason for a badge that seems to be missing. Check every rule of the badge against the page you are looking at:

• Products and collections: the badge may be set for other products.
• Device: a badge for phones does not show on a desktop browser, and the other way round.
• Country or market: a badge for one country does not show to visitors from another.
• Customer tags: a badge for tagged customers needs you to be logged in as such a customer.
• Schedule: a start date in the future or an end date in the past hides the badge.
• Status: a paused badge or an unsaved draft is not live.

Cause 5: the theme has no standard place for the badge

When an app places a badge for you, it looks for familiar parts of the page: the price, the buy form, the buy buttons, the checkout button in the cart. A changed theme, a product template built with a page builder or a section from another app can build these parts differently. The app may then not find its place, and the badge stays out.

Try another position in the app first. If the place you want has no automatic option, add the app block to that section, or use manual placement if your app offers it.

Cause 6: something on the page hides the badge

If the settings look right and the badge still does not show, test in a private browser window. Browser extensions that block content can stop the script of a badge app. Check on a phone as well, over mobile data.

If the badge appears for you but not for some shoppers, ask what they see. Custom CSS in a theme can also hide an element. Right click where the badge should be and choose Inspect: if the badge is in the page but not visible, a style hides it.

Finally, look at the plan of your badge app. Some apps stop showing badges once a monthly view limit is reached.

A short checklist

1. The app embed is on in the theme your store shows.
2. The block sits in the template the product uses.
3. The badge is live, and its rules match the page you test.
4. The theme has the place the badge is set to.
5. The badge shows in a private window, on desktop and on a phone.

How YeahBadges handles it

YeahBadges runs a store check on the Badges page of the app. It names the reason a live badge is missing, with a button to the fix:

• YeahBadges is switched off in your theme, with Open theme editor.
• A badge that has no YeahBadges block in your theme, with the way to the theme editor or to a position YeahBadges places itself.
• A badge that could not find its place on product pages, with Use free placement: you drag the badge to a spot on your real store page in the preview.
• A store that could not load the badge script or read the badge settings.

Report a problem copies a diagnostic report without customer data for support. The automatic places are tested on the free Shopify themes listed in the app under Tested themes, as described in our guide to tested placements on Dawn and Horizon. If a store goes over the monthly views of its plan, its live badges stay visible.