Overview
JavaScript and CAPTCHA lead São Tomé's secondary barriers
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 91.3% |
| Antibot | 18% |
| CAPTCHA | 25.5% |
| JavaScript | 38.6% |
| Rate Limiting | 13.8% |
| TLS | 17.7% |
WAF covers 91.3% of São Tomé's 632 sites. JavaScript leads secondary barriers at 38.6%, followed by CAPTCHA at 25.5%. Rate Limiting at 13.8% is the only secondary barrier above its position in the barrier stack.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript and CAPTCHA are São Tomé's leading secondary barriers
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 91.3% |
| Antibot | 18% |
| CAPTCHA | 25.5% |
| JavaScript | 38.6% |
| Rate Limiting | 13.8% |
| TLS | 17.7% |
| Has robots.txt | 77.5% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 14.6% |
WAF is present on 91.3% of São Tomé sites. JavaScript follows at 38.6% and CAPTCHA at 25.5% — the two highest secondary barriers. Antibot at 18.0% ranks below CAPTCHA.
One in sixteen São Tomé sites carries no detectable barrier
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 6.3% |
| 1 barrier | 31.5% |
| 2 barriers | 32.9% |
| 3 barriers | 15.7% |
| 4 barriers | 7.8% |
| 5 barriers | 5.5% |
| 6 barriers | 0.3% |
6.3% of São Tomé's 632 sites deploy no access barriers at all. Sites with exactly two barriers form the largest group at 32.9%, narrowly ahead of one-barrier sites at 31.5%. Three or more barriers apply to 29.3%.
Most São Tomé and Príncipe sites are Simple to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.5 |
The median recommended tier for São Tomé's 632 sites is Tier 1, with 58.7% of sites accessible at that level. The mean of 1.52 is among the lowest in the region, with a large Tier 1 share.
Most São Tomé and Príncipe sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 58.7% |
| 2 - Easy | 33.5% |
| 3 - Moderate | 5.9% |
| 4 - Complex | 1.4% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.5% |
Tier 1 accounts for 58.7% of São Tomé sites and Tier 2 for 33.5%. Tier 3 reaches just 5.9% of sites — the smallest Tier 3 share in this set. Tiers 4 and 5 together total 1.9%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers top São Tomé and Príncipe's robots.txt bot categories
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 16.8% |
| SEO / search indexing | 13.6% |
| SEO audit tools | 13.3% |
| Commercial scrapers | 8.5% |
| Social / content scrapers | 7.6% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 5.1% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0% |
AI crawlers are cited in robots.txt by 16.8% of all São Tomé sites — the leading category. SEO/search indexing follows at 13.6%. Monitoring and uptime bots receive zero mentions across all 632 sites.
Path-mixed rules are more common than uniform rules in São Tomé
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 34.2% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 36.9% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 2.7% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 3.3% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 3.5% |
Path-level mixed rules apply to 36.9% of São Tomé sites, narrowly exceeding uniform per-agent rules at 34.2%. 22.5% of all sites publish no robots.txt file.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in São Tomé and Príncipe's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 11.2% | 2.2% |
| CCBot | 8.7% | 0.8% |
| ClaudeBot | 8.9% | 1.1% |
| Google-Extended | 9.5% | 1.1% |
| Bytespider | 6.6% | 0.5% |
| meta-externalagent | 4% | 0.8% |
| ChatGPT-User | 5.9% | 3% |
| PerplexityBot | 6.6% | 2.4% |
| Applebot-Extended | 4.7% | 0.3% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 3.2% | 1.6% |
| anthropic-ai | 4.6% | 1.1% |
GPTBot appears in a Disallow directive on 11.2% of all São Tomé sites. ChatGPT-User receives the most explicit Allow entries at 3.0% of sites.
Multiple São Tomé and Príncipe sectors all name at least one bot
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Adult | 100% |
| Automotive | 100% |
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Retail | 100% |
| Distance Learning | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Hospitality | 90% |
| Mass Media | 90% |
| Newspapers | 90% |
| Online Services | 90% |
| Publishing | 90% |
| Sports | 90% |
| Printing | 85.7% |
| Human Resources | 83.3% |
Adult, Automotive, Design, Entertainment, and Retail each have 100% of their sites naming at least one bot in a Disallow rule — the highest rate across all São Tomé sectors.
São Tomé and Príncipe's leading sectors explicitly allow crawlers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Automotive | 80% |
| Design | 80% |
| Hospitality | 80% |
| Photography | 80% |
| Renewable Energy | 80% |
| Retail | 80% |
| Travel & Tourism | 80% |
| Airlines | 70% |
| Non-Profit | 70% |
| Real Estate | 70% |
| Advertising & Mktg | 60% |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 60% |
| Food & Beverages | 60% |
| Oil & Gas | 60% |
| Software & Dev | 60% |
Automotive, Design, Hospitality, Photography, Renewable Energy, Retail, and Travel & Tourism each have 80.0% of their sites naming at least one bot in an explicit Allow rule.
Industry Patterns
Apparel & Fashion is São Tomé's hardest sector to access programmatically
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% | 10% | 20% | 60% | 20% | 30% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Automotive | 90% | 10% | 0% | 50% | 20% | 70% | 100% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 70% | 40% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 20% | 60% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Computer Hardware | 90% | 50% | 50% | 30% | 10% | 20% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Computers & Electronics | 90% | 50% | 30% | 50% | 20% | 40% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Education | 100% | 10% | 0% | 10% | 0% | 0% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Retail | 100% | 0% | 0% | 60% | 10% | 10% | 100% | 60% | Tier 2 |
| Adult | 100% | 30% | 30% | 60% | 20% | 30% | 100% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Distance Learning | 100% | 10% | 40% | 50% | 0% | 0% | 90% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Finance | 80% | 20% | 10% | 20% | 10% | 10% | 70% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Science | 90% | 20% | 20% | 20% | 10% | 0% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Travel & Tourism | 100% | 20% | 0% | 80% | 20% | 20% | 80% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Foreign Language | 100% | 0% | 0% | 60% | 0% | 0% | 100% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Hospitality | 100% | 20% | 30% | 50% | 40% | 40% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Publishing | 90% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 10% | 0% | 90% | 30% | Tier 2 |
Apparel & Fashion records the highest mean recommended tier in São Tomé at 2.35. No sector in the top 15 reaches a median above Tier 2. Automotive and Consumer Electronics follow at 2.30.
Banking, Design, and Import & Export share São Tomé's most accessible floor
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real Estate | 100% | 20% | 20% | 50% | 20% | 10% | 80% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Sports | 100% | 20% | 30% | 90% | 10% | 10% | 90% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 90% | 20% | 30% | 50% | 20% | 40% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Non-Profit | 80% | 30% | 10% | 30% | 0% | 10% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Oil & Gas | 80% | 10% | 40% | 40% | 10% | 20% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Advertising & Mktg | 90% | 40% | 30% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Airlines | 100% | 20% | 0% | 70% | 20% | 20% | 80% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Computer & Video Games | 100% | 30% | 20% | 40% | 20% | 0% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Ecology & Environment | 100% | 20% | 20% | 50% | 10% | 0% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Photography | 90% | 30% | 30% | 20% | 30% | 70% | 80% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Security | 40% | 20% | 20% | 0% | 0% | 20% | 20% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Telecom | 90% | 0% | 0% | 40% | 0% | 10% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Banking | 90% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 10% | 0% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Design | 100% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 100% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Import & Export | 83.3% | 16.7% | 16.7% | 16.7% | 16.7% | 33.3% | 66.7% | 0% | Tier 2 |
Banking, Design, and Import & Export all record a mean recommended tier of 1.50 — the lowest across São Tomé's bottom 15 sectors, and the lowest floor in this country group.