Overview
JavaScript is South Korea's most common secondary barrier
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.4% |
| Antibot | 21.9% |
| CAPTCHA | 22.7% |
| JavaScript | 40.6% |
| Rate Limiting | 13.6% |
| TLS | 17.6% |
WAF covers 92.4% of South Korea's 1,111 surveyed sites. JavaScript leads secondary barriers at 40.6%, followed by CAPTCHA at 22.7%, Antibot at 21.9%, TLS at 17.6%, and Rate Limiting at 13.6%.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript tops South Korea's active secondary defences
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.4% |
| Antibot | 21.9% |
| CAPTCHA | 22.7% |
| JavaScript | 40.6% |
| Rate Limiting | 13.6% |
| TLS | 17.6% |
| Has robots.txt | 79% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 13.7% |
WAF is present on 92.4% of South Korea's 1,111 sites. JavaScript leads secondary barriers at 40.6%. CAPTCHA at 22.7% and Antibot at 21.9% follow closely, with the narrowest gap between second and third in this batch.
Two-barrier stacking is the most common configuration
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 5.3% |
| 1 barrier | 29.5% |
| 2 barriers | 34.1% |
| 3 barriers | 18% |
| 4 barriers | 8.7% |
| 5 barriers | 3.9% |
| 6 barriers | 0.5% |
5.3% of South Korea's 1,111 sites carry no detectable barriers. Two barriers is the modal outcome at 34.1%. Sites with three or more barriers account for 31.1% — the highest three-plus share among the five Asian countries in this group.
Most South Korea sites are Easy to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.7 |
A browser median of 2 and mean of 1.68 characterise South Korea's access difficulty. Tier 1 covers 47.0% of sites and Tier 2 a further 41.0%, giving 88.0% at Tiers 1–2.
Nearly nine in ten sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 47% |
| 2 - Easy | 41% |
| 3 - Moderate | 9.5% |
| 4 - Complex | 1.5% |
| 5 - Advanced | 1% |
Tier 1 accounts for 47.0% of South Korea's sites; Tier 2 adds 41.0%. Tier 3 covers 9.5%, Tier 4 1.5%, and Tier 5 1.0%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers are the most-cited bot category in robots.txt
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 15.2% |
| SEO / search indexing | 12.6% |
| SEO audit tools | 13.1% |
| Commercial scrapers | 8% |
| Social / content scrapers | 6.1% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.8% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.5% |
AI crawlers are mentioned in 15.2% of South Korea's 1,111 surveyed sites. SEO audit tools follow at 13.1%, then SEO / search indexing at 12.6%. Figures include sites without robots.txt.
Uniform per-agent rules lead the robots.txt posture distribution
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 41.6% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 32.5% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 2.3% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.4% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.5% |
21.0% of South Korea's sites have no robots.txt. Uniform per-agent rules is the most common posture at 41.6% of all sites, followed by path-level mixed rules at 32.5%. Blanket Disallow: / covers 2.5%.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 11.2% | 2.3% |
| CCBot | 8.6% | 0.9% |
| ClaudeBot | 8.2% | 1.3% |
| Google-Extended | 7.9% | 1.3% |
| Bytespider | 6.9% | 0.4% |
| meta-externalagent | 3.3% | 0.2% |
| ChatGPT-User | 5.7% | 2.5% |
| PerplexityBot | 5.7% | 2% |
| Applebot-Extended | 5% | 0.4% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4.1% | 1.9% |
| anthropic-ai | 5% | 0.8% |
Of South Korea's 1,111 sites, GPTBot is Disallowed by 11.2% and explicitly Allowed by 2.3%. ChatGPT-User records the highest explicit Allow rate at 2.5%. All values include sites without robots.txt.
Automotive and four other sectors name bots on every site
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Automotive | 100% |
| Computer & Video Games | 100% |
| Design | 100% |
| Retail | 100% |
| Visual Art | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Agriculture | 90% |
| Chemicals | 90% |
| Comics & Animation | 90% |
| Consulting | 90% |
| Entertainment | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Mass Media | 90% |
| Newspapers | 90% |
| Online Services | 90% |
Automotive, Computer & Video Games, Design, Retail, and Visual Art each show 100% named-bot Disallow rates — every site in those sectors names at least one bot to restrict in robots.txt. Ten further sectors stand at 90%.
Automotive leads explicit bot Allow rules
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Automotive | 80% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Retail | 70% |
| Science | 70% |
| Telecom | 70% |
| Veterinary | 70% |
| Airlines | 60% |
| Architecture | 60% |
| Construction | 60% |
| Education | 60% |
| Graphic Design | 60% |
| Investment | 60% |
| Real Estate | 60% |
| Software & Dev | 60% |
Automotive tops South Korea's explicit bot Allow ranking with 80% of sites in that sector naming at least one bot in an Allow rule. Photography, Publishing, Retail, Science, Telecom, and Veterinary each follow at 70%.
Industry Patterns
Jewellery & Luxury is the hardest sector to access programmatically
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jewellery & Luxury | 100% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 50% | 60% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Real Estate | 100% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 40% | 10% | 60% | 30% | Tier 3 |
| Furniture | 100% | 60% | 20% | 60% | 10% | 30% | 70% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 100% | 20% | 20% | 70% | 30% | 40% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 80% | 20% | 20% | 20% | 20% | 10% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Hospitality | 80% | 20% | 0% | 50% | 20% | 40% | 60% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 50% | 20% | 50% | 30% | 0% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 70% | 60% | 40% | 40% | 20% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Retail | 100% | 0% | 0% | 60% | 20% | 20% | 100% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Computer Hardware | 100% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 20% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Restaurants | 90% | 40% | 30% | 60% | 40% | 10% | 60% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 80% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 10% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Medical Devices | 80% | 10% | 0% | 40% | 10% | 0% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 80% | 10% | 20% | 40% | 30% | 30% | 60% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Customer Services | 100% | 10% | 30% | 30% | 20% | 30% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
Jewellery & Luxury records the highest mean recommended tier in South Korea at 2.90, with a median of 3. Real Estate follows at 2.80. Furniture and Restaurants share a mean of 2.20 — three sectors hold a median of 3 in this ranking.
Crafts is the most accessible sector
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Design | 100% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 100% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Mail & Delivery | 70% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Maritime | 90% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 10% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Recruitment & Staffing | 90% | 50% | 50% | 30% | 10% | 40% | 70% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Transport & Logistics | 70% | 50% | 10% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Automotive | 90% | 10% | 20% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 100% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Education | 100% | 20% | 30% | 30% | 10% | 10% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 80% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 0% | 40% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Plastics & Polymers | 90% | 20% | 20% | 30% | 0% | 20% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| TV & Film | 100% | 40% | 30% | 60% | 20% | 10% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Visual Art | 100% | 30% | 20% | 30% | 0% | 20% | 100% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Wholesalers | 80% | 10% | 30% | 50% | 20% | 30% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Wine & Spirits | 100% | 40% | 10% | 30% | 40% | 0% | 70% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 30% | 30% | 60% | 20% | 0% | 80% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Crafts | 100% | 30% | 30% | 50% | 20% | 10% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Crafts records the lowest mean recommended tier in South Korea's bottom-15 group at 1.80. Food & Beverages follows at 1.85. Eight sectors cluster at a mean tier of 1.90.