Overview
JavaScript is Maldives's most common secondary barrier
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.4% |
| Antibot | 20% |
| CAPTCHA | 23.8% |
| JavaScript | 39% |
| Rate Limiting | 11.6% |
| TLS | 17.4% |
WAF covers 92.4% of Maldivian sites. CAPTCHA at 23.8% is second among secondary barriers. JavaScript ranks first at 39.0%, with Rate Limiting the lowest at 11.6%.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript tops Maldives's active secondary defences
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.4% |
| Antibot | 20% |
| CAPTCHA | 23.8% |
| JavaScript | 39% |
| Rate Limiting | 11.6% |
| TLS | 17.4% |
| Has robots.txt | 79.2% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 14% |
WAF leads at 92.4%. JavaScript at 39.0% is the strongest secondary barrier. CAPTCHA at 23.8% is second among secondaries. Rate Limiting at 11.6% is the lowest secondary barrier.
Two-barrier sites are Maldives's most common configuration
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 4.9% |
| 1 barrier | 32.6% |
| 2 barriers | 33.4% |
| 3 barriers | 16.7% |
| 4 barriers | 8.2% |
| 5 barriers | 3.8% |
| 6 barriers | 0.5% |
Two-barrier sites account for 33.4% of Maldivian domains — the most common configuration. Sites with three or more barriers total 29.2%. Barrier-free sites stand at 4.9%.
Most Maldives sites are Simple to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.6 |
The browser-based recommended tier averages 1.64 across 1,007 sites. A median of 1 means over 50% of Maldivian sites require only Tier 1 (Simple) retrieval.
Most Maldives sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 50.2% |
| 2 - Easy | 39.2% |
| 3 - Moderate | 7.7% |
| 4 - Complex | 1.9% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.9% |
Tier 1 (Simple) applies to 50.2% of Maldivian sites — a clear majority. Tier 2 (Easy) accounts for 39.2%. Tier 3 covers 7.7%, while Tier 4 and 5 combined reach 2.8%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers top Maldives's robots.txt bot categories
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 16.3% |
| SEO / search indexing | 12.4% |
| SEO audit tools | 14.2% |
| Commercial scrapers | 8.6% |
| Social / content scrapers | 6.9% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.5% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.4% |
AI crawlers appear in 16.3% of all Maldivian sites. SEO audit tools rank second at 14.2% — ahead of SEO / search indexing at 12.4% — across 1,007 surveyed sites.
Uniform per-agent rules are the most common robots.txt posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 41.5% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 31.8% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 3.4% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.1% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.5% |
Uniform per-agent rules appear on 41.5% of all Maldivian sites. Path-level mixed rules follow at 31.8%. Allow-only rules are present on 3.4% of sites. About 20.8% have no robots.txt.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in Maldives's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 12.5% | 2.7% |
| CCBot | 9.5% | 1.1% |
| ClaudeBot | 9.5% | 1.6% |
| Google-Extended | 8.8% | 1.8% |
| Bytespider | 7.7% | 0.5% |
| meta-externalagent | 3.5% | 0.2% |
| ChatGPT-User | 6.5% | 2.5% |
| PerplexityBot | 6.7% | 2.4% |
| Applebot-Extended | 5.5% | 0.4% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4.4% | 2% |
| anthropic-ai | 5.8% | 1.1% |
GPTBot is named in a Disallow rule on 12.5% of all Maldivian sites — the highest of any AI agent. ChatGPT-User leads Allow rules at 2.5%, with PerplexityBot close behind at 2.4%.
Design, Entertainment, and Newspapers achieve universal named-bot restriction
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Newspapers | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Computer & Video Games | 90% |
| Consumer Electronics | 90% |
| Events | 90% |
| Food & Beverages | 90% |
| Foreign Language | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Healthcare | 90% |
| Mass Media | 90% |
| Online Services | 90% |
| Publishing | 90% |
| Retail | 90% |
Design, Entertainment, and Newspapers each show 100% of their sites naming at least one bot to restrict. Adult, Computer & Video Games, Consumer Electronics, and ten further sectors follow at 90%.
Maldives's Airlines sites lead in explicitly allowing crawlers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Airlines | 90% |
| Museums | 80% |
| Manufacturing | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Real Estate | 70% |
| Retail | 70% |
| Science | 70% |
| Sporting Goods | 70% |
| Travel & Tourism | 70% |
| Visual Art | 70% |
| Automotive | 60% |
| Import & Export | 60% |
| Pharmaceuticals | 60% |
| Software & Dev | 60% |
Airlines name at least one bot in an Allow rule on 90% of sites. Museums follow at 80%. Manufacturing, Photography, Publishing, Real Estate, Retail, Science, Sporting Goods, Travel & Tourism, and Visual Art all reach 70%.
Industry Patterns
Hospitality is the hardest sector to access programmatically
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hospitality | 100% | 20% | 0% | 70% | 30% | 30% | 50% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Retail | 100% | 10% | 0% | 70% | 20% | 10% | 90% | 50% | Tier 3 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 70% | 60% | 40% | 50% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Wholesalers | 80% | 20% | 20% | 50% | 40% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Computer Hardware | 90% | 20% | 0% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 40% | 20% | 50% | 40% | 0% | 50% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Jewellery & Luxury | 100% | 30% | 20% | 40% | 30% | 50% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 80% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 20% | 40% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% | 40% | 30% | 40% | 30% | 30% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Real Estate | 100% | 30% | 30% | 50% | 40% | 10% | 70% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% | 20% | 30% | 50% | 20% | 40% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Mail & Delivery | 70% | 30% | 10% | 0% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Maritime | 90% | 30% | 20% | 50% | 20% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Medical Devices | 100% | 0% | 0% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Recruitment & Staffing | 90% | 40% | 60% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
Hospitality records a mean recommended tier of 2.90 with a median of 3 (Moderate) — the highest difficulty of any sector in the Maldives. Retail follows at 2.60, with Human Resources and Wholesalers at 2.40.
Adult is the most accessible sector
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reference | 80% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 30% | 10% | 50% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Transport & Logistics | 70% | 30% | 10% | 0% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 50% | 50% | 40% | 30% | 0% | 90% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 80% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Design | 100% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 100% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Furniture | 100% | 40% | 20% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 60% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Insurance | 70% | 30% | 10% | 50% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Libraries | 100% | 10% | 0% | 80% | 0% | 10% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Banking | 100% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Import & Export | 100% | 20% | 30% | 50% | 0% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 90% | 40% | 10% | 40% | 10% | 40% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Music | 100% | 30% | 30% | 60% | 20% | 20% | 100% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Science | 100% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 30% | 10% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Education | 100% | 20% | 10% | 20% | 10% | 10% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Adult | 100% | 40% | 30% | 70% | 10% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Adult sites record a mean recommended tier of 1.70 — the lowest of any sector in the Maldives. Education follows at 1.80, with Banking, Import & Export, Manufacturing, Music, and Science all at 1.90.