Overview
TLS outranks Antibot — an unusual ordering among secondary barriers
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.3% |
| Antibot | 15.5% |
| CAPTCHA | 25.8% |
| JavaScript | 32.2% |
| Rate Limiting | 12.9% |
| TLS | 20.2% |
WAF leads at 92.3%. JavaScript leads secondary barriers at 32.2%, followed by CAPTCHA at 25.8%. TLS reaches 20.2%, placing it above Antibot at 15.5% — a reversal of the more common ranking. Rate Limiting is lowest at 12.9%.
Barrier Landscape
TLS overtakes Antibot among Tuvalu secondary barriers
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 92.3% |
| Antibot | 15.5% |
| CAPTCHA | 25.8% |
| JavaScript | 32.2% |
| Rate Limiting | 12.9% |
| TLS | 20.2% |
| Has robots.txt | 84.5% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 20.2% |
WAF reaches 92.3%. JavaScript leads secondary barriers at 32.2%, followed by CAPTCHA at 25.8%. TLS at 20.2% outranks Antibot at 15.5% — an unusual ordering. Rate Limiting is the lowest secondary barrier at 12.9%.
One- and two-barrier sites are tied in Tuvalu
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 6% |
| 1 barrier | 33.5% |
| 2 barriers | 33.5% |
| 3 barriers | 14.2% |
| 4 barriers | 8.6% |
| 5 barriers | 4.3% |
| 6 barriers | 0% |
6.0% of sites carry no barrier — the highest zero-barrier share in this group. One- and two-barrier sites each account for 33.5%. Sites with three or more barriers total 27.1%. No site deploys all six barriers.
Most Tuvalu sites are Simple to access
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.5 |
Median recommended tier is 1. At 63.9%, Tier 1 is the largest share recorded across these five countries. Mean of 1.50 is the lowest in the group. Tier 3 accounts for 5.6% and Tier 4 for 3.4%.
Nine in 10 Tuvalu sites are Simple or Easy to access
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 63.9% |
| 2 - Easy | 26.6% |
| 3 - Moderate | 5.6% |
| 4 - Complex | 3.4% |
| 5 - Advanced | 0.4% |
Tier 1 accounts for 63.9% and Tier 2 for 26.6%, totalling 90.5%. Tier 3 stands at 5.6%. Tier 4 at 3.4% is a narrower gap behind Tier 3 than is typical. Tier 5 is minimal at 0.4%.
robots.txt
AI crawlers top Tuvalu's robots.txt bot categories
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 21% |
| SEO / search indexing | 12% |
| SEO audit tools | 19.3% |
| Commercial scrapers | 12.9% |
| Social / content scrapers | 9% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4.7% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0.4% |
AI crawlers are named by 21.0% of all sites. SEO audit tools follow at 19.3% — an unusually close margin of 1.7 points. Commercial scrapers are cited by 12.9% of sites, the highest share in this country group.
Blanket blocks reach their highest rate in this group
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules (no path mixing) | 45.1% |
| Path-level mixed rules for same agent | 33% |
| Allow-only (no disallow rules) | 2.6% |
| Mixed AI posture (block some, allow others) | 3% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 3.9% |
Uniform per-agent rules apply at 45.1% of sites. Path-level mixed rules account for 33.0%. Blanket Disallow: / reaches 3.9%, the highest share among these five countries. Mixed AI posture stands at 3.0%.
Eight agents share the same Allow rate — a flat profile
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | 15.5% | 1.3% |
| CCBot | 12.9% | 1.3% |
| ClaudeBot | 13.3% | 1.3% |
| Google-Extended | 10.7% | 1.3% |
| Bytespider | 12% | 1.3% |
| meta-externalagent | 4.7% | — |
| ChatGPT-User | 8.6% | 0.4% |
| PerplexityBot | 12% | 1.3% |
| Applebot-Extended | 6.9% | 1.3% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 8.2% | 1.3% |
| anthropic-ai | 9.9% | 0.9% |
GPTBot is blocked on 15.5% of all sites, followed by ClaudeBot at 13.3% and CCBot at 12.9%. On the allow side, eight of eleven agents share an identical 1.3% rate — a flat profile not seen in the other countries.
Tuvalu apparel & fashion all name at least one bot to restrict
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Apparel & Fashion | 100% |
| Automotive | 100% |
| General | 90% |
| Mass Media | 90% |
| Entertainment | 87.5% |
| Music | 83.3% |
| Real Estate | 83.3% |
| Computer & Video Games | 80% |
| Online Services | 80% |
| Publishing | 80% |
| Retail | 80% |
| Software & Dev | 80% |
| Newspapers | 71.4% |
| Non-Profit | 71.4% |
| IT Services | 70% |
Apparel & Fashion and Automotive each have every sampled site naming at least one bot in a Disallow rule. General and Mass Media follow at 90%. Entertainment (87.5%) and Music (83.3%) are also among the highest-restriction sectors.
Automotive leads both explicit Allow and Disallow rates in Tuvalu
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Automotive | 77.8% |
| Software & Dev | 70% |
| Airlines | 66.7% |
| General | 60% |
| Mass Media | 60% |
| Publishing | 60% |
| Newspapers | 57.1% |
| Non-Profit | 57.1% |
| Computer & Video Games | 50% |
| Entertainment | 50% |
| Online Services | 50% |
| Retail | 50% |
| Travel & Tourism | 50% |
| Government | 40% |
| IT Services | 40% |
Automotive tops the explicit bot Allow ranking at 77.8%, making it the only sector with a 100% block rate and a leading allow rate simultaneously. Software & Dev follows at 70% and Airlines at 66.7%.
Industry Patterns
Retail is the hardest sector to access programmatically in Tuvalu
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail | 90% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 20% | 30% | 80% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Publishing | 100% | 20% | 30% | 30% | 20% | 0% | 100% | 40% | Tier 2 |
| Music | 100% | 33.3% | 50% | 50% | 33.3% | 33.3% | 83.3% | 16.7% | Tier 2 |
| Computer & Video Games | 100% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 10% | 0% | 90% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Real Estate | 83.3% | 0% | 0% | 33.3% | 0% | 16.7% | 100% | 33.3% | Tier 2 |
| Software & Dev | 90% | 40% | 20% | 10% | 30% | 20% | 80% | 20% | Tier 2 |
| Mass Media | 90% | 0% | 30% | 50% | 10% | 30% | 90% | 30% | Tier 2 |
| Sports | 100% | 16.7% | 50% | 66.7% | 0% | 0% | 83.3% | 16.7% | Tier 2 |
| Travel & Tourism | 83.3% | 33.3% | 0% | 50% | 33.3% | 16.7% | 66.7% | 16.7% | Tier 2 |
| Automotive | 88.9% | 22.2% | 33.3% | 33.3% | 44.4% | 11.1% | 100% | 33.3% | Tier 1 |
| Non-Profit | 71.4% | 14.3% | 14.3% | 28.6% | 0% | 14.3% | 71.4% | 28.6% | Tier 1 |
| General | 100% | 10% | 40% | 40% | 20% | 40% | 90% | 40% | Tier 1 |
| Entertainment | 100% | 12.5% | 62.5% | 62.5% | 12.5% | 0% | 100% | 37.5% | Tier 1 |
| Online Services | 100% | 0% | 30% | 50% | 10% | 30% | 80% | 30% | Tier 1 |
| Finance | 90% | 20% | 10% | 10% | 20% | 40% | 80% | 20% | Tier 1 |
Retail is the hardest sector, with median recommended tier 2 and mean of 2.10. Publishing (1.90) and Music (1.83) follow. Six of the 15 sectors carry median tier 1 — a relatively spread distribution at small sample sizes.
Government and IT Services share the most accessible tier
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government | 80% | 0% | 0% | 20% | 10% | 10% | 80% | 0% | Tier 1 |
| IT Services | 90% | 0% | 0% | 30% | 10% | 10% | 70% | 10% | Tier 1 |
| Apparel & Fashion | 100% | 28.6% | 71.4% | 28.6% | 14.3% | 28.6% | 100% | 14.3% | Tier 1 |
| Newspapers | 100% | 0% | 28.6% | 28.6% | 0% | 42.9% | 100% | 42.9% | Tier 1 |
| Education | 100% | 20% | 20% | 20% | 0% | 20% | 70% | 0% | Tier 1 |
| Airlines | 83.3% | 33.3% | 0% | 33.3% | 33.3% | 33.3% | 83.3% | 0% | Tier 1 |
| Banking | 100% | 16.7% | 0% | 16.7% | 0% | 16.7% | 100% | 0% | Tier 1 |
Government and IT Services record the lowest mean recommended tier at 1.30, both with median tier 1. Apparel & Fashion (mean 1.29) and Newspapers (1.29) are nearly as accessible. Airlines and Banking share a mean of 1.17 — the absolute floor at small sector sample sizes.