Overview
JavaScript is Singapore's most common secondary barrier
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.3% |
| Antibot | 20.6% |
| CAPTCHA | 21.8% |
| JavaScript | 41.9% |
| Rate Limiting | 12.8% |
| TLS | 17.7% |
WAF covers 92.3% of Singapore's 1,111 sites. JavaScript is the highest secondary barrier at 41.9%. CAPTCHA (21.8%) and Antibot (20.6%) are closely matched. Rate Limiting is the least-deployed barrier at 12.8%.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript is the most common active secondary barrier after WAF
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.3% |
| Antibot | 20.6% |
| CAPTCHA | 21.8% |
| JavaScript | 41.9% |
| Rate Limiting | 12.8% |
| TLS | 17.7% |
| Has robots.txt | 80.1% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 14.1% |
WAF is deployed by 92.3% of Singapore's sites. JavaScript (41.9%) is the leading secondary barrier, with CAPTCHA (21.8%) and Antibot (20.6%) closely following. TLS stands at 17.7%, Rate Limiting at 12.8%.
Two-barrier sites are Singapore's most common configuration
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 5% |
| 1 barrier | 31.1% |
| 2 barriers | 33.4% |
| 3 barriers | 17.5% |
| 4 barriers | 8.5% |
| 5 barriers | 4.1% |
| 6 barriers | 0.4% |
5.0% of Singapore's sites present no barriers. Two barriers is the modal count at 33.4% of sites. Sites deploying three or more barriers account for 30.4% of the total sample of 1,111.
Most Singapore sites are Easy to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.7 |
Singapore's mean recommended browser tier is 1.70 with a median of 2. Tier 1 accounts for 46.7% of sites, holding the mean below 2 despite a tail of harder sites at Tier 3–5.
More than eight in ten sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 46.7% |
| 2 - Easy | 39.8% |
| 3 - Moderate | 10.6% |
| 4 - Complex | 2.3% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.6% |
Tier 1 covers 46.7% of Singapore's 1,111 sites; Tier 2 adds 39.8%, bringing the combined share to 86.5%. Tier 3 accounts for 10.6%. Tier 4 and Tier 5 together account for 2.9%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers are the most-cited bot category in robots.txt
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 15.9% |
| SEO / search indexing | 12.3% |
| SEO audit tools | 14.1% |
| Commercial scrapers | 8.1% |
| Social / content scrapers | 6.1% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.5% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.5% |
AI crawlers are named by 15.9% of Singapore's 1,111 sites — the highest of the seven categories. SEO audit tools follow at 14.1%, then SEO / search indexing at 12.3%. Commercial scrapers are named by 8.1%.
Uniform per-agent rules are the most common robots.txt posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 41.8% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 32.1% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 3.3% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.3% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.8% |
41.8% of Singapore's 1,111 sites use uniform per-agent rules. Path-level mixed rules account for 32.1%. The 19.9% of sites without a robots.txt file are the complement of the 80.1% that have one.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in Singapore's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 11.9% | 2.5% |
| CCBot | 8.9% | 1.3% |
| ClaudeBot | 8.7% | 1.3% |
| Google-Extended | 8.6% | 1.8% |
| Bytespider | 7.1% | 0.4% |
| meta-externalagent | 3.1% | — |
| ChatGPT-User | 6.2% | 2.5% |
| PerplexityBot | 6.2% | 2.3% |
| Applebot-Extended | 4.9% | 0.4% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4.5% | 1.9% |
| anthropic-ai | 5% | 0.8% |
GPTBot is named in a Disallow rule by 11.9% of Singapore's sites — the highest rate. meta-externalagent is the only AI agent with a 0.0% explicit Allow rate across all 1,111 sites.
Nine sectors name bots on every site
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Computer & Video Games | 100% |
| Consumer Electronics | 100% |
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Newspapers | 100% |
| Retail | 100% |
| Telecom | 100% |
| Textiles & Nonwovens | 100% |
| Visual Art | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Agriculture | 90% |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% |
| Comics & Animation | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Healthcare | 90% |
Computer & Video Games, Consumer Electronics, Design, Entertainment, Newspapers, Retail, Telecom, Textiles & Nonwovens, and Visual Art each show every site naming at least one bot to restrict. The next group of sectors stands at 90%.
Singapore's Airlines sites lead in explicitly allowing crawlers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Airlines | 80% |
| Facilities Services | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Retail | 70% |
| Telecom | 70% |
| Travel & Tourism | 70% |
| Architecture | 60% |
| Automotive | 60% |
| Graphic Design | 60% |
| Non-Profit | 60% |
| Renewable Energy | 60% |
| Science | 60% |
| Software & Dev | 60% |
| Agriculture | 50% |
Airlines records the highest named-bot Allow rate in Singapore at 80%. Facilities Services, Photography, Publishing, Retail, Telecom, and Travel & Tourism each follow at 70% — naming at least one bot in an explicit Allow rule.
Industry Patterns
Jewellery & Luxury and Real Estate share the highest mean scraping difficulty
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jewellery & Luxury | 100% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 60% | 60% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Real Estate | 100% | 30% | 30% | 60% | 60% | 10% | 50% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Hospitality | 80% | 20% | 0% | 50% | 20% | 40% | 50% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 20% | 0% | 70% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Furniture | 100% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 10% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Retail | 100% | 10% | 0% | 70% | 10% | 10% | 100% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 100% | 20% | 30% | 70% | 30% | 20% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 20% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 80% | 60% | 50% | 40% | 20% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Restaurants | 90% | 20% | 20% | 60% | 40% | 30% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Computer Hardware | 90% | 20% | 0% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Customer Services | 100% | 10% | 20% | 40% | 30% | 30% | 50% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Medical Devices | 100% | 10% | 0% | 50% | 10% | 0% | 100% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Textiles & Nonwovens | 100% | 0% | 40% | 50% | 0% | 10% | 100% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 80% | 10% | 30% | 40% | 10% | 40% | 100% | 20% | Tier 2 |
Jewellery & Luxury and Real Estate both record a mean recommended browser tier of 2.80 — the highest in Singapore. Hospitality follows at 2.60. Both top sectors hold a Tier 3 median.
Six sectors share the most accessible floor
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Insurance | 80% | 40% | 20% | 50% | 10% | 30% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Maritime | 90% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 10% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Recruitment & Staffing | 90% | 50% | 60% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Banking | 100% | 30% | 10% | 30% | 10% | 10% | 80% | 0% | 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 |
| Public Safety | 100% | 30% | 40% | 60% | 20% | 40% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Telecom | 90% | 10% | 10% | 60% | 0% | 30% | 100% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 50% | 30% | 70% | 50% | 0% | 80% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Crafts | 100% | 20% | 10% | 50% | 20% | 10% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 80% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 0% | 40% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Plastics & Polymers | 90% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 0% | 10% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Printing | 100% | 10% | 20% | 20% | 0% | 10% | 90% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Reference | 90% | 60% | 30% | 50% | 30% | 10% | 60% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 70% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 20% | 30% | 60% | 0% | Tier 2 |
Crafts, Manufacturing, Plastics & Polymers, Printing, Reference, and Sporting Goods all record mean tier 1.90 — the floor of Singapore's industry ranking. All six sites at a Tier 2 median.