Overview
JavaScript is Canada's most common secondary barrier
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.9% |
| Antibot | 22.7% |
| CAPTCHA | 21.8% |
| JavaScript | 43.7% |
| Rate Limiting | 13.9% |
| TLS | 18.9% |
WAF covers 92.9% of Canadian sites. JavaScript (43.7%) leads secondary barriers. Antibot (22.7%) and CAPTCHA (21.8%) are closely matched, with CAPTCHA slightly behind. Rate Limiting (13.9%) and TLS (18.9%) hold the lower positions.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript tops Canada's active secondary defences
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.9% |
| Antibot | 22.7% |
| CAPTCHA | 21.8% |
| JavaScript | 43.7% |
| Rate Limiting | 13.9% |
| TLS | 18.9% |
| Has robots.txt | 79% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 14% |
WAF at 92.9% is near-universal. JavaScript (43.7%) leads secondary barriers by a substantial margin. Antibot (22.7%) and CAPTCHA (21.8%) are closely matched in the low twenties. TLS (18.9%) and Rate Limiting (13.9%) trail.
Most Canadian sites carry at least two barriers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 4.5% |
| 1 barrier | 27.9% |
| 2 barriers | 35.6% |
| 3 barriers | 18.2% |
| 4 barriers | 9.3% |
| 5 barriers | 4.3% |
| 6 barriers | 0.3% |
35.6% of Canadian sites carry exactly two barriers — the most common count. Sites at three or more total 32.1%, including 9.3% at four and 4.3% at five. Just 4.5% have no barriers at all.
Most Canadian sites need JavaScript rendering to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.7 |
The browser median is Tier 2 — JavaScript rendering. Tier 1 (plain HTTP) covers 45.8%, keeping the mean at 1.71. Tiers 3–5 account for 13.8% of sites.
Most Canadian sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 45.8% |
| 2 - Easy | 40.4% |
| 3 - Moderate | 11% |
| 4 - Complex | 2% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.8% |
Tier 1 (45.8%) and Tier 2 (40.4%) together account for 86.2% of Canadian sites. Tier 3 leads the difficult tail at 11.0%. Tiers 4 and 5 together add 2.8%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers top Canada's robots.txt bot categories
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 15.6% |
| SEO / search indexing | 11.9% |
| SEO audit tools | 13.2% |
| Commercial scrapers | 7.7% |
| Social / content scrapers | 6% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.3% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.5% |
AI crawlers appear in robots.txt on 15.6% of all Canadian sites — the most-mentioned category. SEO audit tools reach 13.2%, SEO/search indexers 11.9%, and commercial scrapers 7.7%. Social and archive categories trail further.
Uniform rules are Canada's most common robots.txt posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 42.1% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 31.6% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 2.6% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.6% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.5% |
Uniform per-agent rules lead at 42.1% of all Canadian sites. Path-level mixed rules — where an agent receives different access for different paths — follow closely at 31.6%. Blanket Disallow: / accounts for 2.5%.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in Canada's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 11.5% | 2.3% |
| CCBot | 8.7% | 1.1% |
| ClaudeBot | 8.3% | 1.1% |
| Google-Extended | 8.3% | 1.3% |
| Bytespider | 7% | 0.4% |
| meta-externalagent | 3.2% | 0.3% |
| ChatGPT-User | 6% | 2.7% |
| PerplexityBot | 5.9% | 2.3% |
| Applebot-Extended | 4.9% | 0.3% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4.6% | 2.2% |
| anthropic-ai | 5.1% | 0.8% |
GPTBot appears in a Disallow rule on 11.5% of all Canadian sites. ChatGPT-User holds the highest Allow rate at 2.7%, ahead of GPTBot (2.3%) and OAI-SearchBot (2.2%).
Five Canadian sectors all name at least one bot to restrict
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Computer & Video Games | 100% |
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Newspapers | 100% |
| Packaging | 100% |
| Retail | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 90% |
| Chemicals | 90% |
| Civil Engineering | 90% |
| Comics & Animation | 90% |
| Consumer Electronics | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Machinery | 90% |
| Mass Media | 90% |
Computer & Video Games, Design, Entertainment, Newspapers, and Retail all reach 100%: every site in each sector names at least one bot in a Disallow rule. Packaging also hits 100%. Nine more sectors sit at 90%.
Canada's six leading sectors explicitly allow crawlers at the highest rate
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Airlines | 70% |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Retail | 70% |
| Science | 70% |
| Architecture | 60% |
| Automotive | 60% |
| Facilities Services | 60% |
| Graphic Design | 60% |
| Restaurants | 60% |
| Software & Dev | 60% |
| Sporting Goods | 60% |
| Sports | 60% |
| Travel & Tourism | 60% |
Airlines, Beauty & Cosmetics, Photography, Publishing, Retail, and Science each have 70% of their sites naming at least one bot in an Allow rule. Architecture, Automotive, Facilities Services, Graphic Design, Restaurants, Software & Dev, Sporting Goods, Sports, and Travel & Tourism all follow at 60%.
Industry Patterns
Furniture and Jewellery & Luxury are Canada's hardest sectors to crawl
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Furniture | 100% | 30% | 0% | 40% | 10% | 60% | 70% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Jewellery & Luxury | 100% | 20% | 10% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 50% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Hospitality | 90% | 20% | 0% | 60% | 30% | 40% | 60% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Real Estate | 100% | 20% | 20% | 70% | 40% | 20% | 50% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 40% | 10% | 60% | 20% | 10% | 60% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Medical Devices | 100% | 20% | 10% | 60% | 20% | 0% | 90% | 0% | Tier 3 |
| Pharmaceuticals | 100% | 50% | 20% | 70% | 40% | 10% | 60% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 90% | 10% | 20% | 70% | 20% | 20% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Retail | 100% | 10% | 0% | 70% | 10% | 10% | 100% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 100% | 50% | 30% | 20% | 40% | 30% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 70% | 60% | 50% | 40% | 20% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 80% | 20% | 30% | 30% | 40% | 30% | 60% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Wine & Spirits | 100% | 40% | 20% | 50% | 30% | 0% | 80% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 30% | 30% | 50% | 20% | 0% | 80% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Automotive | 90% | 40% | 0% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Furniture and Jewellery & Luxury both post a median retrieval tier of 3 and a mean of 2.80 — the highest in the country. Hospitality and Real Estate follow at mean 2.70, and Equipment & Supplies and Medical Devices at 2.60.
Crafts, Manufacturing, Printing, and Public Safety are Canada's most accessible sectors
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Computer Hardware | 90% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 10% | 20% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 80% | 10% | 10% | 50% | 10% | 40% | 90% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Restaurants | 90% | 30% | 30% | 50% | 20% | 10% | 70% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Telecom | 90% | 10% | 20% | 60% | 0% | 30% | 100% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Textiles & Nonwovens | 100% | 10% | 40% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Wholesalers | 80% | 30% | 30% | 40% | 40% | 30% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Customer Services | 100% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 30% | 20% | 70% | 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 |
| Maritime | 90% | 10% | 0% | 50% | 10% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Transport & Logistics | 70% | 40% | 10% | 10% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Crafts | 100% | 40% | 40% | 50% | 20% | 10% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 80% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 0% | 40% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Printing | 100% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 10% | 10% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Public Safety | 100% | 30% | 50% | 70% | 20% | 40% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Crafts, Manufacturing, Printing, and Public Safety all reach a mean retrieval tier of 1.90 — the lowest recorded across Canadian sectors in this group.