Overview
Swiss sites carry barriers close to global norms
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.9% |
| Antibot | 20.5% |
| CAPTCHA | 23.3% |
| JavaScript | 41.5% |
| Rate Limiting | 12.4% |
| TLS | 17.6% |
WAF reaches 92.9%, just below the global 93.1%. Secondary barriers are near-identical to global benchmarks: JavaScript 41.5%, CAPTCHA 23.3%, Antibot 20.5%, TLS 17.6%, and Rate Limiting 12.4%.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript tops Switzerland's active secondary defences
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.9% |
| Antibot | 20.5% |
| CAPTCHA | 23.3% |
| JavaScript | 41.5% |
| Rate Limiting | 12.4% |
| TLS | 17.6% |
| Has robots.txt | 81.1% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 14.6% |
WAF is present on 92.9% of Swiss sites. Among secondary barriers, JavaScript (41.5%) and CAPTCHA (23.3%) are most prevalent, both closely in line with global averages.
Most Swiss sites carry at least two barriers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 4.9% |
| 1 barrier | 29.9% |
| 2 barriers | 35.3% |
| 3 barriers | 17.1% |
| 4 barriers | 8.3% |
| 5 barriers | 4.2% |
| 6 barriers | 0.4% |
35.3% of Swiss sites carry exactly two barriers — the most common count. Single-barrier sites account for 29.9%; 4.9% have none. Sites with three or more barriers total 30.0%.
Most Swiss sites are Easy to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.7 |
The median recommended tier is 2, meaning fewer than half of sites are accessible via plain HTTP. The mean tier is 1.66.
Most Swiss sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 49.4% |
| 2 - Easy | 38.9% |
| 3 - Moderate | 8.9% |
| 4 - Complex | 1.9% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.9% |
Tier 1 accounts for 49.4% of sites and Tier 2 for 38.9%, combining to 88.3%. Tier 3 covers 8.9%, Tier 4 1.9%, and Tier 5 0.9%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers top Switzerland's robots.txt bot categories
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 16.4% |
| SEO / search indexing | 13.5% |
| SEO audit tools | 14.5% |
| Commercial scrapers | 8.8% |
| Social / content scrapers | 5.9% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 5.2% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.5% |
Across all 1,111 Swiss sites, 16.4% name at least one AI crawler. SEO audit tools follow at 14.5% and SEO/search indexing bots at 13.5%.
Uniform rules are Switzerland's most common robots.txt posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 42.2% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 34% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 2.1% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.4% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.5% |
42.2% of Swiss sites use uniform per-agent rules; 34.0% apply path-level mixed rules. Blanket Disallow: / covers 2.5% and mixed AI posture 2.4%. 18.9% of sites have no robots.txt.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in Switzerland's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 12.1% | 2.3% |
| CCBot | 8.8% | 0.8% |
| ClaudeBot | 8.8% | 1.2% |
| Google-Extended | 8.4% | 1.3% |
| Bytespider | 7.3% | 0.4% |
| meta-externalagent | 3.2% | 0.3% |
| ChatGPT-User | 6.3% | 2.6% |
| PerplexityBot | 6.5% | 1.9% |
| Applebot-Extended | 5% | 0.5% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4.2% | 2% |
| anthropic-ai | 5.4% | 0.7% |
GPTBot is named in a Disallow rule on 12.1% of all Swiss sites — the highest block rate of any AI agent. ChatGPT-User leads the allow side at 2.6% of all sites.
Six Swiss sectors all name at least one bot to restrict
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Automotive | 100% |
| Computer & Video Games | 100% |
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Retail | 100% |
| Visual Art | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Agriculture | 90% |
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% |
| Comics & Animation | 90% |
| Crafts | 90% |
| Customer Services | 90% |
| Food & Beverages | 90% |
| General | 90% |
Automotive, Computer & Video Games, Design, Entertainment, Retail, and Visual Art each have 100% of their sites naming at least one bot to restrict in a Disallow rule.
Switzerland's Automotive and Customer Services sectors lead in allowing crawlers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Automotive | 80% |
| Customer Services | 80% |
| Non-Profit | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Retail | 70% |
| Sporting Goods | 70% |
| Sports | 70% |
| Travel & Tourism | 70% |
| Airlines | 60% |
| Apparel & Fashion | 60% |
| Architecture | 60% |
| Construction | 60% |
| Food & Beverages | 60% |
| Graphic Design | 60% |
Automotive and Customer Services are tied at 80% — the highest rate of sites naming at least one bot to allow. Non-Profit, Photography, Publishing, and six other sectors follow at 70%.
Industry Patterns
Jewellery & Luxury is Switzerland's hardest sector to access programmatically
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jewellery & Luxury | 100% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 50% | 50% | 70% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Computer Hardware | 90% | 20% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Hospitality | 90% | 20% | 0% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 60% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Consumer Electronics | 80% | 40% | 30% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Furniture | 100% | 40% | 30% | 50% | 40% | 20% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% | 20% | 30% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Real Estate | 100% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 20% | 20% | 70% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 70% | 60% | 50% | 40% | 20% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Medical Devices | 100% | 0% | 10% | 50% | 10% | 0% | 100% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Retail | 100% | 0% | 0% | 60% | 20% | 20% | 100% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Automotive | 100% | 0% | 10% | 30% | 10% | 30% | 100% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% | 40% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 30% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 40% | 30% | 50% | 20% | 0% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 50% | 40% | 40% | 30% | 0% | 90% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Crafts | 100% | 30% | 30% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
Jewellery & Luxury records the highest mean recommended tier at 3.10. Computer Hardware follows at 2.75 and Hospitality at 2.70. A cluster of sectors sits between 2.05 and 2.50.
Seven Swiss sectors share the most accessible floor
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Design | 100% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 100% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Education | 100% | 20% | 10% | 20% | 10% | 10% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Machinery | 90% | 0% | 10% | 60% | 0% | 0% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Mail & Delivery | 70% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Public Safety | 100% | 10% | 40% | 70% | 10% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Restaurants | 90% | 50% | 30% | 70% | 40% | 40% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 80% | 20% | 30% | 10% | 50% | 30% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Transport & Logistics | 70% | 50% | 10% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Computers & Electronics | 80% | 10% | 30% | 30% | 0% | 20% | 60% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Customer Services | 100% | 0% | 20% | 50% | 10% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 80% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 0% | 40% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Recruitment & Staffing | 100% | 40% | 70% | 30% | 0% | 10% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Textiles & Nonwovens | 90% | 10% | 30% | 40% | 10% | 30% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Visual Art | 100% | 30% | 20% | 30% | 0% | 20% | 100% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Wholesalers | 80% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 10% | 30% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
Computers & Electronics, Customer Services, Manufacturing, Recruitment & Staffing, Textiles & Nonwovens, Visual Art, and Wholesalers all record a mean tier of 1.90 — the lowest value in the bottom-industries group.