Overview
JavaScript is Uganda's most common secondary barrier
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.4% |
| Antibot | 20.8% |
| CAPTCHA | 21.3% |
| JavaScript | 41.4% |
| Rate Limiting | 11.9% |
| TLS | 17.9% |
WAF is present on 92.4% of Uganda sites. Among secondary barriers, JavaScript reaches 41.4%, followed by CAPTCHA at 21.3%, Antibot at 20.8%, TLS at 17.9%, and Rate Limiting at 11.9%.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript tops Uganda's active secondary defences
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.4% |
| Antibot | 20.8% |
| CAPTCHA | 21.3% |
| JavaScript | 41.4% |
| Rate Limiting | 11.9% |
| TLS | 17.9% |
| Has robots.txt | 80.3% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 14.2% |
WAF accounts for 92.4% of sites. JavaScript ranks first among secondary barriers at 41.4%, more than double the rate of CAPTCHA (21.3%) and Antibot (20.8%). Rate Limiting is the least-deployed at 11.9%.
Two-barrier sites are Uganda's most common configuration
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 4.8% |
| 1 barrier | 31.3% |
| 2 barriers | 34% |
| 3 barriers | 17.4% |
| 4 barriers | 8.5% |
| 5 barriers | 3.5% |
| 6 barriers | 0.4% |
34.0% of Uganda sites carry exactly two barriers — the single largest group. One barrier accounts for 31.3%. Sites carrying three or more barriers total 29.8%. Only 4.8% carry none.
Most Uganda sites are Easy to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.7 |
The mean browser-retrieval tier across 1,072 Uganda sites is 1.7, with a median of 2. The median above 1 indicates fewer than half of sites sit at Tier 1.
Nearly half of Uganda sites are Simple to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 47.2% |
| 2 - Easy | 39.7% |
| 3 - Moderate | 9.8% |
| 4 - Complex | 1.9% |
| 5 - Advanced | 1.4% |
47.2% of Uganda sites sit at Tier 1 (Simple) and 39.7% at Tier 2 (Easy), together accounting for 86.9%. Tier 3 (Moderate) holds 9.8%. Tiers 4 and 5 together account for 3.3%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers are Uganda's most-cited robots.txt bot category
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 16.3% |
| SEO / search indexing | 12.1% |
| SEO audit tools | 13.7% |
| Commercial scrapers | 7.6% |
| Social / content scrapers | 6.4% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.4% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.6% |
AI crawlers appear in robots.txt rules on 16.3% of all 1,072 Uganda sites — more than any other bot category. SEO audit tools follow at 13.7%, then SEO/search indexing at 12.1%.
Uniform rules are Uganda's most common robots.txt posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 42.2% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 33% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 2.2% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.6% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.6% |
42.2% of Uganda sites use uniform per-agent rules with no path mixing. Path-level mixed rules apply to 33.0%. Sites with no robots.txt at all account for 19.7% of the total.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in Uganda's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 11.8% | 2.2% |
| CCBot | 8.4% | 1% |
| ClaudeBot | 8.1% | 1.1% |
| Google-Extended | 8% | 1.6% |
| Bytespider | 7% | 0.5% |
| meta-externalagent | 3% | 0.2% |
| ChatGPT-User | 6% | 2.8% |
| PerplexityBot | 6.2% | 2.5% |
| Applebot-Extended | 4.7% | 0.5% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4% | 2.2% |
| anthropic-ai | 5.2% | 0.8% |
GPTBot carries a Disallow rule on 11.8% of all Uganda sites — the highest block rate of any AI agent. ChatGPT-User receives the most explicit Allow rules, on 2.8% of sites.
Multiple Uganda sectors all name at least one bot to restrict
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Medical Devices | 100% |
| Performing Arts | 100% |
| Retail | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Agriculture | 90% |
| Civil Engineering | 90% |
| Comics & Animation | 90% |
| Computer & Video Games | 90% |
| Consumer Electronics | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Healthcare | 90% |
| Insurance | 90% |
| Investment | 90% |
Design, Entertainment, Medical Devices, Performing Arts, and Retail each have 100% of their sites naming at least one bot in a Disallow rule — the ceiling rate among Uganda's top-15 sectors.
Uganda's Airlines and Retail sites lead in explicitly allowing crawlers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Airlines | 80% |
| Retail | 80% |
| Investment | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Science | 70% |
| Training & Cert. | 70% |
| Travel & Tourism | 70% |
| Veterinary | 70% |
| Graphic Design | 60% |
| IT Services | 60% |
| Mental Health | 60% |
| Music | 60% |
| Non-Profit | 60% |
| Renewable Energy | 60% |
Airlines and Retail sites lead explicit Allow rules, each with 80% of sector sites naming at least one bot to permit. Investment, Photography, Publishing, Science, Training, Travel, and Veterinary all reach 70%.
Industry Patterns
Hospitality is Uganda's hardest sector to access programmatically
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hospitality | 90% | 20% | 0% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Computer Hardware | 80% | 10% | 0% | 20% | 20% | 30% | 70% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Real Estate | 100% | 30% | 30% | 60% | 50% | 10% | 50% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 30% | 10% | 70% | 30% | 0% | 60% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Retail | 100% | 10% | 0% | 70% | 10% | 10% | 100% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Furniture | 100% | 60% | 20% | 30% | 0% | 60% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Customer Services | 100% | 10% | 20% | 60% | 30% | 10% | 60% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 80% | 60% | 50% | 40% | 20% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Restaurants | 90% | 40% | 10% | 70% | 40% | 10% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Automotive | 80% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 40% | 20% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% | 30% | 30% | 50% | 40% | 10% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Jewellery & Luxury | 100% | 20% | 0% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 80% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 10% | 40% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Insurance | 90% | 20% | 0% | 30% | 0% | 30% | 100% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Medical Devices | 100% | 40% | 20% | 50% | 30% | 0% | 100% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Hospitality tops Uganda's difficulty ranking with a mean recommended tier of 2.90. Computer Hardware (2.85) and Real Estate (2.70) follow. All three sectors have a median tier of 3.
Four Uganda sectors share the most accessible floor
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% | 0% | 20% | 50% | 20% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Mail & Delivery | 80% | 30% | 10% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Maritime | 80% | 20% | 10% | 40% | 10% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Recruitment & Staffing | 100% | 50% | 60% | 30% | 0% | 20% | 70% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Transport & Logistics | 80% | 30% | 10% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 40% | 20% | 70% | 40% | 0% | 80% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Design | 100% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 100% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Reference | 80% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 10% | 50% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Renewable Energy | 70% | 0% | 20% | 40% | 10% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 90% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 60% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Wine & Spirits | 100% | 20% | 10% | 50% | 20% | 10% | 60% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Banking | 100% | 30% | 20% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 80% | 20% | 10% | 20% | 0% | 60% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Pharmaceuticals | 90% | 40% | 30% | 40% | 30% | 10% | 50% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Printing | 100% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 10% | 10% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
Printing is Uganda's most accessible sector with a mean recommended tier of 1.90, shared by Banking, Manufacturing, and Pharmaceuticals. The bottom-15 group spans mean tiers from 1.90 to 2.10.