Overview
JavaScript is Macao SAR's most common secondary barrier
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 90.8% |
| Antibot | 20.5% |
| CAPTCHA | 21.6% |
| JavaScript | 39.5% |
| Rate Limiting | 12.3% |
| TLS | 17.7% |
WAF covers 90.8% of Macao SAR sites. Among secondary barriers, JavaScript ranks first at 39.5%. TLS at 17.7% follows.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript heads the secondary barrier profile
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 90.8% |
| Antibot | 20.5% |
| CAPTCHA | 21.6% |
| JavaScript | 39.5% |
| Rate Limiting | 12.3% |
| TLS | 17.7% |
| Has robots.txt | 76.9% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 12.7% |
WAF leads at 90.8%. JavaScript at 39.5% is the strongest secondary barrier, followed by Antibot at 20.5% and CAPTCHA at 21.6%. Rate Limiting at 12.3% is the weakest secondary barrier.
More than one in fifteen sites carry no barriers at all
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 6.6% |
| 1 barrier | 30.8% |
| 2 barriers | 33.6% |
| 3 barriers | 16.5% |
| 4 barriers | 8.2% |
| 5 barriers | 4% |
| 6 barriers | 0.4% |
6.6% of Macao SAR sites carry no barriers — above the typical range. Two-barrier sites are modal at 33.6%. Sites with three or more barriers account for 29.1% of the total.
Most Macao SAR sites are Easy to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.6 |
The browser-based recommended tier averages 1.65 — among the lower values in the region. A median of 2 indicates more than half of sites require at least Tier 2 (Easy) retrieval.
Most Macao SAR sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 49.1% |
| 2 - Easy | 39.3% |
| 3 - Moderate | 9.3% |
| 4 - Complex | 1.5% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.8% |
Tier 1 (Simple) covers 49.1% of Macao SAR sites. Tier 2 (Easy) accounts for 39.3%. Tier 3 reaches 9.3%, while Tier 4 and 5 together total 2.3%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers top the bot-category rankings in robots.txt
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 14.2% |
| SEO / search indexing | 12.4% |
| SEO audit tools | 12% |
| Commercial scrapers | 7.8% |
| Social / content scrapers | 6% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.5% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.6% |
AI crawlers are named on 14.2% of all Macao SAR sites. SEO / search indexing and SEO audit tools follow closely at 12.4% and 12.0% respectively, across 1,033 surveyed sites.
Uniform rules are Macao SAR's most common robots.txt posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 40.9% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 30.9% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 1.8% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.1% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 3% |
Uniform per-agent rules are present on 40.9% of all Macao SAR sites, with path-level mixed rules on a further 30.9%. Sites without any robots.txt account for approximately 23.1%.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in Macao SAR's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 10.5% | 1.4% |
| CCBot | 8.1% | 0.7% |
| ClaudeBot | 7.6% | 0.7% |
| Google-Extended | 7.2% | 1% |
| Bytespider | 6.3% | 0.4% |
| meta-externalagent | 2.8% | 0.2% |
| ChatGPT-User | 5.6% | 2.2% |
| PerplexityBot | 5.7% | 1.7% |
| Applebot-Extended | 4.6% | 0.3% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 3.8% | 1.8% |
| anthropic-ai | 4.7% | 0.6% |
GPTBot is named in a Disallow rule on 10.5% of all Macao SAR sites — the highest of any AI agent. ChatGPT-User leads explicit Allow rules at 2.2%, ahead of OAI-SearchBot at 1.8%.
Five sectors reach universal named-bot Disallow coverage
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Computer & Video Games | 100% |
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Newspapers | 100% |
| Retail | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Consumer Electronics | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Healthcare | 90% |
| Mass Media | 90% |
| Online Services | 90% |
| Public Relations | 90% |
| Publishing | 90% |
| Visual Art | 90% |
| Aerospace & Defence | 80% |
Computer & Video Games, Design, Entertainment, Newspapers, and Retail each show 100% of their sites naming at least one bot to restrict. Adult, Consumer Electronics, and five others follow at 90%.
Airlines leads explicit bot Allow rules by a clear margin
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Airlines | 90% |
| Architecture | 70% |
| Automotive | 70% |
| Market Research | 70% |
| Packaging | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Travel & Tourism | 70% |
| Retail | 60% |
| Science | 60% |
| Software & Dev | 60% |
| Wholesalers | 60% |
| Computer & Video Games | 50% |
| Construction | 50% |
| Consulting | 50% |
Airlines sites name at least one bot in an Allow rule on 90% of domains — well ahead of the next tier. Architecture, Automotive, Market Research, Packaging, Photography, Publishing, and Travel & Tourism follow at 70%.
Industry Patterns
Hospitality and Jewellery & Luxury share the highest scraping difficulty
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hospitality | 80% | 20% | 0% | 50% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Jewellery & Luxury | 100% | 30% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 60% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% | 30% | 20% | 50% | 50% | 10% | 60% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Medical Devices | 90% | 20% | 10% | 50% | 30% | 0% | 70% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Sporting Goods | 80% | 10% | 10% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 50% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Real Estate | 100% | 30% | 30% | 60% | 60% | 10% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Computer Hardware | 90% | 20% | 0% | 30% | 20% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Furniture | 100% | 30% | 30% | 40% | 30% | 30% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Restaurants | 90% | 40% | 20% | 60% | 30% | 20% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Retail | 90% | 10% | 0% | 60% | 10% | 20% | 100% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 100% | 20% | 30% | 50% | 30% | 40% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 80% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 10% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 80% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 50% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 60% | 50% | 40% | 60% | 20% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Transport & Logistics | 70% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 0% | 30% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
Hospitality and Jewellery & Luxury both record a mean recommended tier of 2.80 with a median of 3 (Moderate) — the hardest sectors in Macao SAR. Beauty & Cosmetics and Medical Devices follow at 2.60.
Oil & Gas is the most accessible sector
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automotive | 100% | 20% | 0% | 60% | 40% | 40% | 80% | 20% | 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 |
| Sports | 100% | 10% | 20% | 70% | 20% | 10% | 80% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 40% | 30% | 80% | 30% | 0% | 80% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Banking | 100% | 10% | 10% | 50% | 10% | 10% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Education | 100% | 20% | 10% | 20% | 10% | 10% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Travel & Tourism | 100% | 40% | 10% | 70% | 20% | 10% | 80% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Wholesalers | 80% | 10% | 10% | 20% | 0% | 40% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Advertising & Mktg | 100% | 20% | 40% | 50% | 0% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Aerospace & Defence | 90% | 10% | 10% | 10% | 0% | 30% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Crafts | 100% | 10% | 30% | 30% | 10% | 0% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Insurance | 80% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 10% | 30% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 80% | 20% | 10% | 40% | 0% | 50% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Oil & Gas | 60% | 0% | 0% | 30% | 0% | 10% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Oil & Gas posts the lowest mean recommended tier at 1.80 — the accessible floor for Macao SAR industries. Advertising & Marketing, Aerospace & Defence, Crafts, Insurance, and Manufacturing share 1.80 alongside it.