Overview
JavaScript is El Salvador's most common secondary barrier
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 93.9% |
| Antibot | 19.4% |
| CAPTCHA | 23% |
| JavaScript | 43.7% |
| Rate Limiting | 12.5% |
| TLS | 18.5% |
WAF reaches 93.9% of El Salvador’s 1,080 sites. JavaScript (43.7%) leads secondary barriers, followed by CAPTCHA (23.0%) and Antibot (19.4%). TLS (18.5%) and Rate Limiting (12.5%) are the lowest.
Barrier Landscape
JavaScript tops El Salvador's active secondary defences
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 93.9% |
| Antibot | 19.4% |
| CAPTCHA | 23% |
| JavaScript | 43.7% |
| Rate Limiting | 12.5% |
| TLS | 18.5% |
| Has robots.txt | 81.9% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 15.3% |
WAF covers 93.9% of Salvadoran domains. JavaScript is the leading secondary barrier at 43.7%. CAPTCHA follows at 23.0%, while Antibot at 19.4% is the lowest secondary rate in this country group. Rate Limiting stands at 12.5%.
Most El Salvador sites carry at least two barriers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 3.7% |
| 1 barrier | 28.8% |
| 2 barriers | 36.9% |
| 3 barriers | 18.2% |
| 4 barriers | 8.8% |
| 5 barriers | 3.1% |
| 6 barriers | 0.5% |
3.7% of El Salvador’s 1,080 sites carry no barriers. Two barriers is the modal configuration at 36.9%. Single-barrier sites account for 28.8%. Three or more barriers appear on 27.6% of sites.
El Salvador's sites sit at the Simple-to-Easy access boundary
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.7 |
The median recommended retrieval tier is 2, indicating fewer than half of sites are at Tier 1 (plain HTTP). The mean of 1.67 reflects a substantial Tier 1 concentration. 48.1% of sites are at Tier 1; 39.5% at Tier 2 (Easy).
Most Salvadoran sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 48.1% |
| 2 - Easy | 39.5% |
| 3 - Moderate | 10.1% |
| 4 - Complex | 1.9% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.5% |
48.1% of El Salvador's sites sit at Tier 1 (Simple) and 39.5% at Tier 2 (Easy), accounting for 87.6% of all domains. Tier 3 (Moderate) covers 10.1%. Tiers 4 and 5 together account for 2.4% of sites.
robots.txt
AI crawlers top El Salvador's robots.txt bot categories
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 17% |
| SEO / search indexing | 13.3% |
| SEO audit tools | 13.2% |
| Commercial scrapers | 7.1% |
| Social / content scrapers | 6.1% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.7% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.6% |
AI crawlers are the most-cited bot category in El Salvador, appearing in 17.0% of all 1,080 site robots.txt files. SEO audit tools follow at 14.3%, and SEO search indexing at 12.1%.
Uniform rules are El Salvador's most common robots.txt posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 42.6% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 34.2% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 2.1% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 2.9% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 2.7% |
81.9% of Salvadoran sites publish a robots.txt file. Of those with robots.txt, 44.4% use uniform per-agent rules, 27.6% mix path-level rules, and 4.3% use a blanket Disallow: /.
GPTBot faces the most Disallow rules in El Salvador's robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 11.7% | 2.4% |
| CCBot | 8.9% | 1.2% |
| ClaudeBot | 8.9% | 1.1% |
| Google-Extended | 8.6% | 1.7% |
| Bytespider | 8% | 0.5% |
| meta-externalagent | 3.2% | 0.3% |
| ChatGPT-User | 5.8% | 2.9% |
| PerplexityBot | 6% | 2.3% |
| Applebot-Extended | 4.8% | 0.6% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4.6% | 2.5% |
| anthropic-ai | 4.7% | 0.8% |
GPTBot appears in Disallow rules on 11.7% of all Salvadoran sites — the highest block rate in this batch. CCBot and ClaudeBot are each blocked on 8.9% of sites. ChatGPT-User leads Allow rates at 2.9%.
Eight El Salvador sectors all name at least one bot to restrict
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Computer & Video Games | 100% |
| Design | 100% |
| Entertainment | 100% |
| Insurance | 100% |
| Medical Devices | 100% |
| Newspapers | 100% |
| Plastics & Polymers | 100% |
| Retail | 100% |
| Adult | 90% |
| Biotech | 90% |
| Civil Engineering | 90% |
| Comics & Animation | 90% |
| Foreign Language | 90% |
| General | 90% |
| Healthcare | 90% |
Computer & Video Games, Design, Entertainment, Insurance, Medical Devices, Newspapers, Plastics & Polymers, and Retail each reach a 100% named-bot Disallow rate. Six further sectors sit at 90%, including Adult, Biotech, Civil Engineering, and Healthcare.
El Salvador's Market Research and Science sectors lead in explicitly allowing crawlers
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Market Research | 80% |
| Science | 80% |
| Oil & Gas | 70% |
| Photography | 70% |
| Publishing | 70% |
| Retail | 70% |
| Airlines | 60% |
| Automotive | 60% |
| Consulting | 60% |
| Furniture | 60% |
| Non-Profit | 60% |
| Pharmaceuticals | 60% |
| Plastics & Polymers | 60% |
| Public Safety | 60% |
| Recreational Facilities | 60% |
Market Research and Science each have 80% of their sites naming at least one bot in an explicit Allow rule — the highest in El Salvador. Oil & Gas, Photography, Publishing, and Retail follow at 70%. Nine further sectors reach 60%.
Industry Patterns
Hospitality is El Salvador's most demanding sector for crawlers
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hospitality | 90% | 20% | 0% | 50% | 40% | 50% | 60% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Furniture | 100% | 40% | 20% | 50% | 20% | 60% | 60% | 20% | Tier 3 |
| Jewellery & Luxury | 100% | 30% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 60% | 70% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Real Estate | 100% | 20% | 10% | 70% | 60% | 10% | 60% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 90% | 30% | 10% | 60% | 20% | 0% | 60% | 10% | Tier 3 |
| Computer Hardware | 100% | 40% | 20% | 40% | 50% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 80% | 10% | 10% | 50% | 20% | 40% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Restaurants | 80% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 30% | 30% | 60% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Retail | 100% | 10% | 0% | 60% | 10% | 10% | 100% | 50% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 90% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 70% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Human Resources | 100% | 60% | 60% | 40% | 40% | 20% | 60% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Insurance | 80% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 0% | 30% | 100% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Medical Devices | 100% | 0% | 20% | 30% | 10% | 10% | 100% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Wholesalers | 90% | 10% | 40% | 60% | 30% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 100% | 20% | 30% | 70% | 30% | 30% | 80% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Hospitality leads El Salvador's difficulty ranking with a mean recommended tier of 2.90 and a sector median of 3 (Moderate). Furniture and Jewellery & Luxury follow at mean 2.70, also at median 3. Real Estate sits at mean 2.60 with a median of 3.
Advertising and Marketing is El Salvador's most accessible sector
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mail & Delivery | 70% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 0% | 10% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Recruitment & Staffing | 100% | 30% | 50% | 30% | 0% | 20% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Transport & Logistics | 70% | 30% | 20% | 30% | 0% | 10% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 100% | 40% | 30% | 50% | 40% | 20% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Crafts | 100% | 30% | 30% | 60% | 20% | 10% | 60% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Design | 100% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 100% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Maritime | 80% | 20% | 0% | 30% | 10% | 30% | 70% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Wine & Spirits | 90% | 30% | 10% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 60% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Healthcare | 100% | 10% | 10% | 30% | 0% | 10% | 100% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Manufacturing | 90% | 20% | 30% | 50% | 0% | 40% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Printing | 100% | 10% | 20% | 30% | 10% | 10% | 80% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Visual Art | 100% | 30% | 30% | 30% | 0% | 10% | 100% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 100% | 40% | 40% | 70% | 20% | 0% | 80% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Pharmaceuticals | 80% | 10% | 10% | 50% | 10% | 10% | 60% | 0% | Tier 2 |
| Advertising & Mktg | 100% | 30% | 50% | 50% | 0% | 30% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
Advertising & Marketing records El Salvador's lowest mean recommended tier at 1.80. Pharmaceuticals and Food & Beverages follow at 1.85. A cluster of sectors including Visual Art, Healthcare, Printing, and Manufacturing share a mean of 1.90, all at median tier 2.