Overview
Antibot and CAPTCHA are tied — an unusually even secondary barrier pair
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.2% |
| Antibot | 22.9% |
| CAPTCHA | 22.9% |
| JavaScript | 41.6% |
| Rate Limiting | 13.6% |
| TLS | 19.2% |
China is the only country in this set where Antibot and CAPTCHA share identical rates. TLS (19.2%) ranks third among secondary barriers, ahead of Rate Limiting at 13.6%.
Barrier Landscape
Antibot and CAPTCHA rates are identical among secondary barriers
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.2% |
| Antibot | 22.9% |
| CAPTCHA | 22.9% |
| JavaScript | 41.6% |
| Rate Limiting | 13.6% |
| TLS | 19.2% |
| Has robots.txt | 79.2% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 13.7% |
JavaScript leads at 41.6% but Antibot and CAPTCHA are matched behind it. This parity sets China apart: the two barrier types are typically ordered differently in other markets.
Two-barrier sites lead the stacking distribution
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 5.6% |
| 1 barrier | 27.9% |
| 2 barriers | 34.2% |
| 3 barriers | 17.9% |
| 4 barriers | 9.9% |
| 5 barriers | 4.1% |
| 6 barriers | 0.5% |
One-barrier sites (27.9%) form the second group. China has the highest zero-barrier share in this set at 5.6%. Only 0.5% of sites deploy all six barriers at once.
Most China sites are Easy to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.7 |
With Tier 1 at 44.2% and Tier 2 at 43.2%, the distribution is the most closely balanced between the two tiers in this set. The mean of 1.71 reflects this near-even split.
Simple and Easy sites are almost evenly split across the site population
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 44.2% |
| 2 - Easy | 43.2% |
| 3 - Moderate | 10.2% |
| 4 - Complex | 1.9% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.5% |
Tier 1 covers 44.2% of sites; Tier 2 covers 43.2% — a gap of only one percentage point. Tier 3 accounts for 10.2%, with Tiers 4 and 5 needed for just 2.4% of domains.
robots.txt
AI crawlers are the most-cited bot category
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 15.3% |
| SEO / search indexing | 12.8% |
| SEO audit tools | 13.8% |
| Commercial scrapers | 7.7% |
| Social / content scrapers | 6.2% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.6% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.6% |
AI crawlers appear in 15.3% of all China site rules. SEO audit tools (13.8%) and SEO/search bots (12.8%) follow. Monitoring bots appear on fewer than 1% of sites.
Uniform rules are China's most common robots.txt posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 41% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 33.1% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 2% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.4% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.9% |
Blanket Disallow: / is the third-largest posture at 2.9%, above mixed AI posture (2.4%) and Allow-only rules (2.0%). No-robots sites account for the remaining 20.8%.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in China's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 11.1% | 2% |
| CCBot | 8.7% | 0.9% |
| ClaudeBot | 8.1% | 1.1% |
| Google-Extended | 8.2% | 1.2% |
| Bytespider | 7% | 0.3% |
| meta-externalagent | 2.8% | — |
| ChatGPT-User | 5.3% | 2.6% |
| PerplexityBot | 5.3% | 2.2% |
| Applebot-Extended | 4.6% | 0.4% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4.1% | 2.1% |
| anthropic-ai | 4.6% | 0.7% |
GPTBot is blocked on 11.1% of all China sites. Uniquely, meta-externalagent records 0.0% explicit Allow entries — the only agent in this crawl with no positive access grants in China.
Seven sectors name bots on every site
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Computer & Video Games | 100% |
| Consumer Electronics | 100% |
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Newspapers | 100% |
| Telecom | 100% |
| Visual Art | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Ceramics & Pottery | 90% |
| Comics & Animation | 90% |
| Furniture | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Machinery | 90% |
| Mass Media | 90% |
| Online Services | 90% |
Computer & Video Games, Consumer Electronics, Design, Entertainment, Newspapers, Telecom and Visual Art all record 100% Disallow rates. Eight further sectors hold 90%.
Six sectors share the top explicit bot Allow rate
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Airlines | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Renewable Energy | 70% |
| Retail | 70% |
| Travel & Tourism | 70% |
| Architecture | 60% |
| Automotive | 60% |
| Ceramics & Pottery | 60% |
| Furniture | 60% |
| Mental Health | 60% |
| Performing Arts | 60% |
| Plastics & Polymers | 60% |
| Public Relations | 60% |
| Real Estate | 60% |
Airlines, Photography, Publishing, Renewable Energy, Retail and Travel & Tourism all show 70% explicit Allow rates. Nine further sectors follow at 60%, indicating broad but not deep allow intent.
Industry Patterns
Real Estate is the hardest sector at Moderate median difficulty
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real Estate | 100% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 40% | 20% | 60% | 30% | Tier 3 |
| Furniture | 100% | 40% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 90% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Jewellery & Luxury | 100% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 50% | 50% | 60% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Computer Hardware | 100% | 20% | 0% | 30% | 30% | 20% | 70% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Hospitality | 80% | 20% | 0% | 50% | 20% | 40% | 50% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Medical Devices | 90% | 10% | 0% | 60% | 20% | 0% | 80% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 30% | 20% | 50% | 20% | 10% | 70% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Retail | 100% | 10% | 0% | 70% | 20% | 10% | 90% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% | 30% | 20% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 80% | 60% | 50% | 40% | 20% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 90% | 30% | 20% | 50% | 20% | 0% | 70% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Automotive | 100% | 20% | 10% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 80% | 10% | 30% | 40% | 10% | 40% | 100% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Insurance | 80% | 30% | 10% | 40% | 10% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 90% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 40% | 30% | 60% | 0% | Tier 2 |
Real Estate leads with the highest tier mean among industries holding a Tier 3 median. Furniture (2.70), Jewellery & Luxury (2.70) and Computer Hardware (2.65) form a tight cluster behind it.
Multiple sectors share the most accessible floor
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wine & Spirits | 100% | 60% | 10% | 50% | 30% | 10% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 100% | 20% | 30% | 60% | 30% | 30% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Recruitment & Staffing | 90% | 50% | 60% | 30% | 10% | 40% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Restaurants | 90% | 40% | 40% | 60% | 40% | 20% | 60% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Telecom | 90% | 10% | 20% | 60% | 0% | 30% | 100% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Textiles & Nonwovens | 100% | 10% | 40% | 50% | 0% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Construction | 90% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 30% | 0% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Design | 100% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 100% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Mail & Delivery | 70% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Wholesalers | 80% | 10% | 20% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 70% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Crafts | 100% | 20% | 20% | 50% | 20% | 10% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 80% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 0% | 40% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Maritime | 100% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 10% | 30% | 100% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Printing | 100% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 10% | 10% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Public Safety | 100% | 20% | 50% | 60% | 20% | 20% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
Five sectors cluster at the accessible floor of 1.90: Crafts, Manufacturing, Maritime, Printing and Public Safety — all holding a mean tier well below the national average.