Overview
JavaScript is Malawi's most common secondary barrier
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.2% |
| Antibot | 20.9% |
| CAPTCHA | 26.7% |
| JavaScript | 39.5% |
| Rate Limiting | 12.2% |
| TLS | 16.9% |
WAF is present on 92.2% of Malawi sites. Unusually, CAPTCHA (26.7%) ranks second among secondary barriers, ahead of Antibot (20.9%) — the widest CAPTCHA–Antibot gap in this dataset.
Barrier Landscape
CAPTCHA is Malawi's second-most common secondary barrier after JavaScript
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.2% |
| Antibot | 20.9% |
| CAPTCHA | 26.7% |
| JavaScript | 39.5% |
| Rate Limiting | 12.2% |
| TLS | 16.9% |
| Has robots.txt | 81.1% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 13.7% |
JavaScript rendering (39.5%) is the most common secondary barrier. CAPTCHA (26.7%) places second — more prevalent than Antibot (20.9%) — with human-verification checks more widely deployed than bot-scoring systems.
Two barriers edge out single-barrier sites in Malawi
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 4.5% |
| 1 barrier | 32.2% |
| 2 barriers | 33.5% |
| 3 barriers | 15.5% |
| 4 barriers | 9.6% |
| 5 barriers | 4.3% |
| 6 barriers | 0.5% |
33.5% of sites carry exactly two barriers, just ahead of single-barrier sites (32.2%). Only 4.5% of Malawi sites are barrier-free, while nearly 15% layer four or more barriers.
Most Malawi sites are Simple to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.6 |
With a median of 1 and a mean of 1.59, Malawi's sites tend toward lighter retrieval complexity. Over half are accessible at Tier 1, and the mean sits closer to Tier 1 than to Tier 2.
Over half of Malawi sites are Simple to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 55.3% |
| 2 - Easy | 33.5% |
| 3 - Moderate | 8.8% |
| 4 - Complex | 1.8% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.6% |
55.3% of sites resolve at Tier 1 — the majority of the domain set. A further 33.5% require Tier 2, leaving only 2.4% at the most demanding tiers (4–5).
robots.txt
AI crawlers top Malawi's robots.txt bot categories
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 15.4% |
| SEO / search indexing | 13.2% |
| SEO audit tools | 13.5% |
| Commercial scrapers | 6.4% |
| Social / content scrapers | 5.6% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.1% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.4% |
AI crawlers appear in 15.4% of all Malawi sites. SEO audit tools (13.5%) edge out SEO search indexing bots (13.2%) for second place — an unusual reversal of the typical ranking.
Uniform per-agent rules cover over four in ten Malawi sites
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 42.6% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 31.8% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 3.7% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.4% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.9% |
42.6% of sites deploy uniform per-agent rules without path mixing — the most common posture. Blanket Disallow: / covers 2.9% of all sites, while Allow-only configurations account for 3.7%.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in Malawi's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 11.9% | 2.6% |
| CCBot | 9.1% | 1.3% |
| ClaudeBot | 8.8% | 1.1% |
| Google-Extended | 9% | 1.8% |
| Bytespider | 7% | 0.6% |
| meta-externalagent | 3.2% | — |
| ChatGPT-User | 6.6% | 2.4% |
| PerplexityBot | 6.2% | 2.1% |
| Applebot-Extended | 5% | 0.5% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4.7% | 2.1% |
| anthropic-ai | 5.2% | 0.9% |
GPTBot is blocked on 11.9% of all Malawi sites. meta-externalagent is the only AI agent with no explicit Allow entries across the entire country's robots.txt dataset.
Multiple Malawi sectors all name at least one bot to restrict
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Architecture | 100% |
| Design | 100% |
| Printing | 100% |
| Retail | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Advertising & Mktg | 90% |
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% |
| Biotech | 90% |
| Chemicals | 90% |
| Computer & Video Games | 90% |
| Consulting | 90% |
| Entertainment | 90% |
| Foreign Language | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Graphic Design | 90% |
Four sectors — Architecture, Design, Printing, and Retail — show a 100% named-bot block rate. Eleven further sectors follow at 90%, indicating broadly consistent use of explicit crawler restrictions.
Architecture tops Malawi's allowlist and also leads bot-blocking
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Architecture | 80% |
| Performing Arts | 71.4% |
| Airlines | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Retail | 70% |
| Science | 70% |
| Sporting Goods | 70% |
| Aerospace & Defence | 60% |
| Chemicals | 60% |
| Events | 60% |
| IT Services | 60% |
| Market Research | 60% |
| Non-Profit | 60% |
| Oil & Gas | 60% |
Architecture allowlists named bots on 80% of its sites — the highest rate in Malawi and the only sector to simultaneously top both the block and allow rankings. Performing Arts follows at 71.4%.
Industry Patterns
Computer Hardware and Hospitality share Malawi's hardest-to-access position
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Computer Hardware | 80% | 10% | 0% | 30% | 10% | 30% | 80% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Hospitality | 100% | 40% | 10% | 70% | 20% | 30% | 70% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 80% | 50% | 60% | 50% | 20% | 60% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Retail | 100% | 10% | 0% | 70% | 10% | 10% | 100% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 40% | 20% | 70% | 60% | 0% | 50% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 100% | 10% | 30% | 70% | 30% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 70% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 10% | 60% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Recruitment & Staffing | 90% | 40% | 30% | 40% | 0% | 20% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Wholesalers | 80% | 30% | 40% | 70% | 50% | 30% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Design | 100% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 100% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Jewellery & Luxury | 80% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 10% | 40% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Mail & Delivery | 70% | 20% | 20% | 30% | 10% | 30% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Real Estate | 90% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 0% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Transport & Logistics | 70% | 20% | 20% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Automotive | 70% | 20% | 0% | 10% | 30% | 30% | 80% | 40% | Tier 2 |
Computer Hardware and Hospitality both post a mean browser difficulty of 2.70 with a median of Tier 3 — the joint-highest in Malawi. Hospitality deploys WAF on every site alongside 70% JavaScript rendering.
Adult sites are Malawi's most accessible sector
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 100% | 50% | 50% | 60% | 30% | 20% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Maritime | 70% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 0% | 30% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Medical Devices | 100% | 0% | 30% | 50% | 20% | 0% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Pharmaceuticals | 100% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 20% | 10% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Telecom | 90% | 0% | 20% | 70% | 0% | 20% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 50% | 50% | 70% | 50% | 10% | 70% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Airlines | 90% | 10% | 10% | 50% | 30% | 30% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Computers & Electronics | 80% | 10% | 30% | 20% | 0% | 40% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Insurance | 70% | 30% | 10% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Libraries | 100% | 10% | 0% | 60% | 0% | 0% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 80% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 10% | 50% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Reference | 100% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 50% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Renewable Energy | 60% | 0% | 20% | 30% | 0% | 10% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Science | 100% | 30% | 20% | 50% | 30% | 10% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Adult | 100% | 40% | 40% | 70% | 10% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Adult posts the lowest mean browser difficulty (1.70) in the country. Despite 100% WAF and 70% JavaScript adoption, the sector's overall difficulty profile remains relatively light.