Overview
JavaScript is Zimbabwe's most common secondary barrier
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.3% |
| Antibot | 20% |
| CAPTCHA | 22.8% |
| JavaScript | 40.5% |
| Rate Limiting | 11.8% |
| TLS | 18.7% |
WAF covers 92.3% of Zimbabwe sites. Among secondary barriers, JavaScript leads at 40.5%, followed by CAPTCHA at 22.8%, Antibot at 20.0%, TLS at 18.7%, and Rate Limiting at 11.8%.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript tops Zimbabwe's active secondary defences
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.3% |
| Antibot | 20% |
| CAPTCHA | 22.8% |
| JavaScript | 40.5% |
| Rate Limiting | 11.8% |
| TLS | 18.7% |
| Has robots.txt | 81.1% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 13.7% |
WAF accounts for 92.3% of sites. JavaScript leads secondary barriers at 40.5%, followed by CAPTCHA (22.8%), Antibot (20.0%), and TLS (18.7%). Rate Limiting is the lowest secondary barrier at 11.8%.
Two-barrier sites are Zimbabwe's most common configuration
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 4.3% |
| 1 barrier | 30.8% |
| 2 barriers | 35.8% |
| 3 barriers | 16.5% |
| 4 barriers | 8.6% |
| 5 barriers | 3.6% |
| 6 barriers | 0.3% |
35.8% of Zimbabwe sites carry exactly two barriers — the largest single group. One barrier accounts for 30.8%. Sites with three or more barriers total 29.0%. Only 4.3% carry no barriers at all.
Most Zimbabwe sites are Easy to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.6 |
The mean browser-retrieval tier across 1,060 Zimbabwe sites is 1.64, with a median of 2. Tier 1 covers 49.8% of sites — a fraction below the majority threshold that would pull the median to 1.
Most Zimbabwe sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 49.8% |
| 2 - Easy | 38.6% |
| 3 - Moderate | 9.4% |
| 4 - Complex | 1.6% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.6% |
49.8% of Zimbabwe sites sit at Tier 1 (Simple) and 38.6% at Tier 2 (Easy) — 88.4% combined. Tier 3 (Moderate) accounts for 9.4%. Tiers 4 and 5 together hold just 2.2%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers top Zimbabwe's robots.txt bot categories
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 15.3% |
| SEO / search indexing | 12.8% |
| SEO audit tools | 12.9% |
| Commercial scrapers | 8.1% |
| Social / content scrapers | 6.8% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 3.9% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.3% |
AI crawlers lead all bot categories on 15.3% of Zimbabwe's 1,060 sites. SEO audit tools (12.9%) and SEO/search indexing (12.8%) are nearly level — a gap of just 0.1 percentage points.
Uniform rules are Zimbabwe's most common robots.txt posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 42.4% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 32.9% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 2.8% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.3% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.8% |
42.4% of Zimbabwe sites use uniform per-agent rules with no path mixing. Path-level mixed rules apply to 32.9%. Sites with no robots.txt account for 18.9% of all 1,060 sites.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in Zimbabwe's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 11.2% | 2% |
| CCBot | 9% | 1% |
| ClaudeBot | 8.5% | 1.2% |
| Google-Extended | 9.1% | 1.7% |
| Bytespider | 7.3% | 0.5% |
| meta-externalagent | 2.7% | 0.1% |
| ChatGPT-User | 5.8% | 2.6% |
| PerplexityBot | 6.3% | 2.4% |
| Applebot-Extended | 5.4% | 0.4% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4.2% | 2.2% |
| anthropic-ai | 5.8% | 1% |
GPTBot carries a Disallow rule on 11.2% of all Zimbabwe sites. Google-Extended follows at 9.1%. ChatGPT-User receives the most explicit Allow rules at 2.6% of sites.
Multiple Zimbabwe sectors all name at least one bot to restrict
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Newspapers | 100% |
| Retail | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Automotive | 90% |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% |
| Civil Engineering | 90% |
| Computer & Video Games | 90% |
| Foreign Language | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Healthcare | 90% |
| Investment | 90% |
| Mass Media | 90% |
| Online Services | 90% |
Design, Entertainment, Newspapers, and Retail each have every sampled site naming at least one bot in a Disallow rule. Eleven further sectors sit at 90%, spanning Adult to Online Services.
Zimbabwe's Public Policy sites lead in explicitly allowing crawlers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Public Policy | 80% |
| Market Research | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Retail | 70% |
| Science | 70% |
| Recreational Facilities | 62.5% |
| Airlines | 60% |
| Consulting | 60% |
| Foreign Language | 60% |
| Import & Export | 60% |
| Investment | 60% |
| Mental Health | 60% |
| Real Estate | 60% |
| Software & Dev | 60% |
Public Policy tops Zimbabwe's explicit Allow list at 80% of sector sites. Market Research, Photography, Publishing, Retail, and Science each reach 70%. Recreational Facilities follows at 62.5%.
Industry Patterns
Four Zimbabwe sectors reach a Moderate median access tier
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hospitality | 90% | 30% | 0% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 70% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 90% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Jewellery & Luxury | 90% | 40% | 10% | 20% | 20% | 50% | 80% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Computer Hardware | 80% | 10% | 0% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 70% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Real Estate | 100% | 20% | 20% | 60% | 50% | 30% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Retail | 100% | 10% | 0% | 70% | 10% | 10% | 100% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 80% | 60% | 50% | 40% | 20% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% | 10% | 20% | 50% | 10% | 20% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 20% | 20% | 70% | 20% | 10% | 50% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 80% | 10% | 10% | 50% | 10% | 50% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Transport & Logistics | 70% | 40% | 10% | 30% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Mail & Delivery | 70% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 80% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 20% | 40% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 40% | 20% | 60% | 30% | 10% | 80% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Design | 100% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 100% | 30% | Tier 2 |
Hospitality tops Zimbabwe's difficulty ranking at mean tier 2.80 (median 3). Beauty & Cosmetics and Jewellery & Luxury follow at mean 2.60 (median 3), then Computer Hardware, Real Estate, and Retail all at mean 2.50.
Seven Zimbabwe sectors share the most accessible floor
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Events | 100% | 10% | 10% | 90% | 20% | 0% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 90% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 0% | 40% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Maritime | 80% | 10% | 20% | 40% | 10% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Recruitment & Staffing | 100% | 50% | 60% | 30% | 10% | 30% | 60% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Reference | 80% | 70% | 30% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 50% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Wine & Spirits | 100% | 30% | 0% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Banking | 100% | 40% | 10% | 30% | 20% | 10% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Furniture | 100% | 20% | 40% | 50% | 10% | 10% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Computers & Electronics | 100% | 10% | 30% | 30% | 0% | 30% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Insurance | 90% | 30% | 30% | 20% | 10% | 0% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Libraries | 100% | 10% | 0% | 70% | 0% | 0% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Medical Devices | 90% | 0% | 0% | 40% | 10% | 20% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Music | 100% | 40% | 30% | 60% | 20% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Renewable Energy | 70% | 0% | 20% | 60% | 10% | 30% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Science | 100% | 20% | 10% | 50% | 30% | 10% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Computers & Electronics, Insurance, Libraries, Medical Devices, Music, Renewable Energy, and Science each record a mean recommended tier of 1.80 — the lowest in Zimbabwe's bottom-15 group.