Overview
Ukrainian sites run most secondary barriers modestly above global rates
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 93.4% |
| Antibot | 21.6% |
| CAPTCHA | 22.8% |
| JavaScript | 43.5% |
| Rate Limiting | 13.8% |
| TLS | 17.6% |
WAF adoption stands at 93.4%, near the global rate of 93.1%. JavaScript (43.5%) and Antibot (21.6%) each exceed their global averages by 2.2 and 1.4 points respectively. Rate Limiting (13.8%) and TLS (17.6%) sit close to global norms.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript tops Ukraine's active secondary barriers
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 93.4% |
| Antibot | 21.6% |
| CAPTCHA | 22.8% |
| JavaScript | 43.5% |
| Rate Limiting | 13.8% |
| TLS | 17.6% |
| Has robots.txt | 80.7% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 13% |
WAF is present on 93.4% of sites. Among secondary barriers, JavaScript ranks highest at 43.5%, followed by Antibot at 21.6%. Rate Limiting (13.8%) is the least deployed secondary barrier.
Most Ukrainian sites carry two barriers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 4.4% |
| 1 barrier | 28.4% |
| 2 barriers | 35.6% |
| 3 barriers | 18.6% |
| 4 barriers | 8.1% |
| 5 barriers | 4.4% |
| 6 barriers | 0.5% |
35.6% of sites carry exactly two barriers — the modal count. 4.4% have no barriers at all. Sites with three or more barriers account for 31.6% of the sample.
Most Ukrainian sites need Easy-tier access to retrieve content
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.7 |
The browser-based median recommended tier is 2, meaning fewer than half of sites are accessible via plain HTTP requests. The mean tier is 1.67.
Nearly nine in ten Ukrainian sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 48.8% |
| 2 - Easy | 39.1% |
| 3 - Moderate | 9.4% |
| 4 - Complex | 1.9% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.9% |
Tier 1 accounts for 48.8% of sites and Tier 2 for 39.1%, giving a combined 87.9%. Tier 3 covers 9.4%, Tier 4 covers 1.9%, and Tier 5 covers 0.9%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers top Ukraine's robots.txt bot categories
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 14.8% |
| SEO / search indexing | 12% |
| SEO audit tools | 13.8% |
| Commercial scrapers | 7.8% |
| Social / content scrapers | 6% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.3% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.5% |
Across all 1,111 Ukrainian sites, 14.8% name at least one AI crawler in their robots.txt. SEO audit tools follow at 13.8%, with SEO/search indexing bots named on 12.0% of sites.
Uniform rules are Ukraine's most common robots.txt posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 41.8% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 34.3% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 1.9% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.5% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.7% |
19.3% of Ukrainian sites have no robots.txt. Among those that do, uniform per-agent rules apply to 41.8% of all sites, path-level mixed rules to 34.3%, blanket Disallow: / to 2.7%, and mixed AI posture to 2.5%.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in Ukraine's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 11% | 2.6% |
| CCBot | 8.3% | 1.3% |
| ClaudeBot | 7.7% | 1.1% |
| Google-Extended | 7.7% | 1.5% |
| Bytespider | 6.6% | 0.4% |
| meta-externalagent | 2.6% | — |
| ChatGPT-User | 5.4% | 2.7% |
| PerplexityBot | 5% | 1.8% |
| Applebot-Extended | 4.8% | 0.5% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 3.8% | 1.9% |
| anthropic-ai | 4.6% | 0.9% |
GPTBot is named in a Disallow rule on 11.0% of all Ukrainian sites — the highest block rate among AI agents. ChatGPT-User leads on the allow side at 2.7% of all sites.
Eight Ukrainian sectors all name at least one bot to restrict
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Automotive | 100% |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 100% |
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Newspapers | 100% |
| Renewable Energy | 100% |
| Textiles & Nonwovens | 100% |
| Visual Art | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Agriculture | 90% |
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% |
| Civil Engineering | 90% |
| Comics & Animation | 90% |
| Computer & Video Games | 90% |
| Food & Beverages | 90% |
In 8 of the top 15 sectors — including Automotive, Newspapers, and Visual Art — every site names at least one bot to restrict in a Disallow rule. Seven further sectors stand at 90%.
Ukraine's Automotive sites lead in explicitly allowing crawlers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Automotive | 90% |
| Plastics & Polymers | 80% |
| Airlines | 70% |
| Architecture | 70% |
| Farms & Ranches | 70% |
| Pharmaceuticals | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Science | 70% |
| Travel & Tourism | 70% |
| Biotech | 60% |
| Construction | 60% |
| Food & Beverages | 60% |
| Furniture | 60% |
| Graphic Design | 60% |
Automotive tops the table with 90% of its sites naming at least one bot to allow. Plastics & Polymers follows at 80%. Airlines, Architecture, Farms & Ranches, Pharmaceuticals, Photography, Publishing, Science, and Travel & Tourism each reach 70%.
Industry Patterns
Hospitality, Jewellery & Luxury and Real Estate are Ukraine's hardest sectors
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hospitality | 90% | 30% | 0% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 60% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Jewellery & Luxury | 100% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 50% | 50% | 70% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Real Estate | 100% | 10% | 10% | 40% | 30% | 20% | 60% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Computer Hardware | 90% | 20% | 0% | 30% | 30% | 20% | 80% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Retail | 100% | 0% | 0% | 70% | 30% | 10% | 90% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 80% | 60% | 50% | 40% | 20% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 40% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 0% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Warehousing | 100% | 50% | 30% | 70% | 50% | 10% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% | 20% | 30% | 60% | 20% | 40% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 100% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 100% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 90% | 10% | 10% | 50% | 20% | 30% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Customer Services | 100% | 20% | 30% | 50% | 30% | 20% | 60% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Public Safety | 100% | 40% | 40% | 50% | 20% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Recruitment & Staffing | 100% | 40% | 50% | 40% | 0% | 10% | 70% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Telecom | 90% | 0% | 0% | 60% | 0% | 10% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Hospitality, Jewellery & Luxury, and Real Estate share the highest mean recommended tier at 2.80. Computer Hardware follows at 2.75. Retail sits at 2.60.
Nine Ukrainian sectors share the most accessible tier floor
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automotive | 100% | 0% | 0% | 30% | 20% | 30% | 100% | 10% | 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 |
| Reference | 90% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 10% | 60% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Textiles & Nonwovens | 100% | 0% | 30% | 70% | 0% | 10% | 100% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Transport & Logistics | 70% | 50% | 10% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Adult | 100% | 40% | 30% | 80% | 10% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Crafts | 100% | 30% | 20% | 60% | 20% | 10% | 70% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 20% | 20% | 50% | 10% | 10% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Import & Export | 100% | 30% | 30% | 40% | 0% | 40% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Machinery | 90% | 0% | 10% | 70% | 0% | 0% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 80% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 0% | 40% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Music | 100% | 40% | 30% | 70% | 30% | 20% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Restaurants | 90% | 50% | 40% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 80% | 20% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
Adult, Crafts, Food & Beverages, Import & Export, Machinery, Manufacturing, Music, Restaurants, and Sporting Goods all record a mean recommended tier of 1.90 — the lowest value in the bottom-industries table.