Overview
Irish sites carry barriers close to global norms
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.6% |
| Antibot | 20.8% |
| CAPTCHA | 21.6% |
| JavaScript | 42.5% |
| Rate Limiting | 13% |
| TLS | 17.7% |
WAF adoption is 92.6%, fractionally below the global 93.1%. JavaScript (42.5%) leads secondary barriers, above the global 41.3%. Antibot (20.8%), CAPTCHA (21.6%), rate limiting (13.0%), and TLS (17.7%) are all at or near global benchmarks.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript tops Ireland's active secondary defences
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.6% |
| Antibot | 20.8% |
| CAPTCHA | 21.6% |
| JavaScript | 42.5% |
| Rate Limiting | 13% |
| TLS | 17.7% |
| Has robots.txt | 80% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 14.2% |
WAF is present on 92.6% of Irish sites. Among secondary barriers, JavaScript (42.5%) and antibot (20.8%) rank first and second. TLS (17.7%) matches the global average exactly.
Most Irish sites carry at least two barriers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 4.8% |
| 1 barrier | 29.3% |
| 2 barriers | 35.8% |
| 3 barriers | 17.8% |
| 4 barriers | 8.2% |
| 5 barriers | 3.9% |
| 6 barriers | 0.3% |
35.8% of sites carry exactly two barriers — the modal count. Single-barrier sites account for 29.3%; 4.8% have none. 30.2% deploy three or more barriers.
Most Irish sites are Easy to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.7 |
The browser-based median tier is 2, meaning fewer than half of sites resolve at Tier 1. The mean tier is 1.69.
Most Irish sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 47.5% |
| 2 - Easy | 39.4% |
| 3 - Moderate | 10.3% |
| 4 - Complex | 2.4% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.4% |
Tier 1 accounts for 47.5% and Tier 2 for 39.4%, giving a combined 86.9%. Tier 3 holds 10.3%, Tier 4 2.4%, and Tier 5 0.4%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers top Ireland's robots.txt bot categories
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 15.9% |
| SEO / search indexing | 13.1% |
| SEO audit tools | 13.8% |
| Commercial scrapers | 8.4% |
| Social / content scrapers | 6.3% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.8% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.5% |
Across all 1,104 Irish sites, 15.9% name at least one AI crawler, 13.8% name an SEO audit tool, and 13.1% name an SEO or search-indexing bot. Commercial scrapers appear on 8.4% of sites.
Uniform rules are Ireland's most common robots.txt posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 41.8% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 32.9% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 2.7% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.2% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.5% |
20.0% of sites have no robots.txt. Among those with one, the leading posture is uniform per-agent rules (41.8%), followed by path-level mixed rules (32.9%). Blanket Disallow: / covers 2.5% and mixed-AI posture 2.2%.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in Ireland's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 12% | 2.4% |
| CCBot | 8.9% | 0.8% |
| ClaudeBot | 9.1% | 1.1% |
| Google-Extended | 8.2% | 1.2% |
| Bytespider | 7% | 0.3% |
| meta-externalagent | 3.1% | 0.2% |
| ChatGPT-User | 6.2% | 2.4% |
| PerplexityBot | 6.2% | 1.8% |
| Applebot-Extended | 5.1% | 0.5% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4.4% | 1.8% |
| anthropic-ai | 5.3% | 0.7% |
GPTBot is named in a Disallow rule on 12.0% of all Irish sites — the highest block rate of any AI agent. ChatGPT-User receives an explicit Allow on 2.4% of sites.
Seven Irish sectors all name at least one bot to restrict
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Automotive | 100% |
| Computer & Video Games | 100% |
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Newspapers | 100% |
| Retail | 100% |
| Visual Art | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Agriculture | 90% |
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% |
| Comics & Animation | 90% |
| Crafts | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Healthcare | 90% |
Automotive, Computer & Video Games, Design, Entertainment, Newspapers, Retail, and Visual Art each reach 100%: every site in those sectors names at least one bot to restrict in a Disallow rule.
Ireland's Automotive and Construction sectors lead in allowing crawlers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Automotive | 80% |
| Construction | 80% |
| Airlines | 70% |
| Architecture | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Plastics & Polymers | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Real Estate | 70% |
| Retail | 70% |
| Science | 70% |
| Telecom | 70% |
| Education | 60% |
| Graphic Design | 60% |
| Import & Export | 60% |
| Investment | 60% |
Automotive and Construction both reach 80% — the highest explicit allow rate in Ireland — meaning that share of sites in each sector names at least one bot to allow. Nine further sectors reach 70% or 60%.
Industry Patterns
Computer Hardware is Ireland's hardest sector to access programmatically
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Computer Hardware | 90% | 30% | 10% | 20% | 40% | 20% | 80% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Jewellery & Luxury | 100% | 20% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 60% | 60% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Furniture | 100% | 30% | 10% | 40% | 30% | 20% | 60% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Real Estate | 100% | 10% | 10% | 50% | 40% | 20% | 70% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 80% | 30% | 30% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 80% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 30% | 40% | 90% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Hospitality | 90% | 20% | 0% | 60% | 20% | 40% | 70% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Medical Devices | 100% | 10% | 10% | 50% | 10% | 0% | 100% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Restaurants | 90% | 30% | 20% | 80% | 40% | 20% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Retail | 100% | 0% | 0% | 60% | 20% | 20% | 100% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% | 10% | 20% | 40% | 10% | 40% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 70% | 60% | 50% | 40% | 20% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Recruitment & Staffing | 100% | 40% | 50% | 40% | 0% | 10% | 70% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Textiles & Nonwovens | 90% | 0% | 30% | 50% | 0% | 0% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 50% | 30% | 60% | 30% | 0% | 80% | 40% | Tier 2 |
Computer Hardware records the highest mean tier at 2.95. Jewellery & Luxury follows at 2.70, with Furniture at 2.40. Real Estate (2.50) and Consumer Electronics (2.40) also rank high.
Six Irish sectors share the most accessible floor
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automotive | 100% | 0% | 0% | 40% | 30% | 20% | 100% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Design | 100% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 100% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 30% | 0% | 40% | 20% | 0% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Mail & Delivery | 70% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Maritime | 90% | 10% | 0% | 40% | 10% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Public Safety | 100% | 20% | 40% | 60% | 10% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 80% | 10% | 20% | 20% | 30% | 30% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Transport & Logistics | 70% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| TV & Film | 100% | 40% | 20% | 60% | 20% | 10% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Adult | 100% | 40% | 30% | 80% | 10% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Crafts | 100% | 20% | 20% | 50% | 20% | 10% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Customer Services | 100% | 20% | 40% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Education | 100% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 10% | 10% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Healthcare | 100% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 10% | 20% | 100% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Import & Export | 100% | 30% | 40% | 40% | 0% | 40% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Adult, Crafts, Customer Services, Education, Healthcare, and Import & Export all record a mean tier of 1.90 — the lowest in the bottom-industry group — indicating near-Tier-1 accessibility on average.