Overview
JavaScript and Rate Limiting both elevate Computer Hardware's active barrier profile
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 93% |
| Antibot | 30% |
| CAPTCHA | 20% |
| JavaScript | 42% |
| Rate Limiting | 33% |
| TLS | 15% |
WAF leads at 93%. JavaScript (42%) and Rate Limiting (33%) together form a multi-layer active stack — more than most sectors deploy alongside WAF.
Barrier Landscape
WAF leads Computer Hardware at 93% — JavaScript is the main secondary layer
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 93% |
| Antibot | 30% |
| CAPTCHA | 20% |
| JavaScript | 42% |
| Rate Limiting | 33% |
| TLS | 15% |
| Has robots.txt | 73% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 13% |
WAF dominates at 93%. JavaScript (42%) leads active secondary barriers, followed by Rate Limiting (33%). The remaining three barriers all sit at or below 30% — a concentrated rather than broadly stacked profile.
Computer Hardware's barrier counts are spread — no single configuration dominates
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 3% |
| 1 barrier | 40% |
| 2 barriers | 20% |
| 3 barriers | 11% |
| 4 barriers | 14% |
| 5 barriers | 8% |
| 6 barriers | 4% |
Barrier counts vary widely across Computer Hardware sites. Single-barrier configurations are the modal count at 40%, but the distribution is broad. 37% of sites carry three or more.
Computer Hardware is predominantly Easy to access — with a notable Moderate minority
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.99 |
A mean recommended tier of 1.99 and a median of Easy place Computer Hardware around the middle of the sectors surveyed. 37% of sites are Simple to access; 24% require Moderate or above.
Simple and Easy cover most Computer Hardware sites
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 36.7% |
| 2 - Easy | 39.8% |
| 3 - Moderate | 14.3% |
| 4 - Complex | 6.1% |
| 5 - Advanced | 3.1% |
Easy (40%) is the most common tier. Simple and Easy together account for 76% of sites, while 14% land at Moderate and 9% at Complex or Advanced.
robots.txt
Around three-quarters of Computer Hardware sites publish a robots.txt
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Publish a valid robots.txt | 73% |
73% of Computer Hardware sites have a valid robots.txt. The remaining 27% leave crawl policy entirely undefined — a meaningful gap for a sector of this scale.
Computer Hardware's robots.txt files show moderate engagement with named bot policy
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 | 33% |
| 1 | 26% |
| 2–4 | 15% |
| 5–9 | 13% |
| 10–15 | 3% |
| 16+ | 10% |
A mean of 13.2 named agents reflects moderate bot-policy investment in Computer Hardware. 33% of sites name no agents; 10% name 16 or more. The median of 1 suggests a bimodal split.
SEO crawlers draw the most robots.txt attention in Computer Hardware
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 17% |
| SEO / search indexing | 19% |
| SEO audit tools | 14% |
| Commercial scrapers | 4% |
| Social / content scrapers | 0% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 4% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 0% |
SEO / search indexing bots are mentioned by 19% of Computer Hardware sites. AI crawlers follow at 17%. All figures are percentages of all 100 Computer Hardware sites surveyed.
Uniform per-agent rules dominate Computer Hardware robots.txt files
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules | 44% |
| Path-level mixed rules | 28% |
| Allow-only (no Disallow rules) | 0% |
| Mixed AI posture | 2% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 1% |
Uniform per-agent rules lead at 44%, with path-level mixed rules at 28%. Mixed AI posture (2%) and blanket Disallow (1%) are minimal.
MJ12bot leads named Disallow rules in Computer Hardware robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| * | 61% | 27% |
| GPTBot | 9% | 4% |
| CCBot | 9% | 2% |
| MJ12bot | 11% | — |
| Google-Extended | 7% | 3% |
| Googlebot | 6% | 2% |
| OAI-SearchBot | 4% | 4% |
| Baiduspider | 8% | — |
| Gigabot | 8% | — |
| Yandex | 7% | — |
| Amazonbot | 6% | 1% |
| ClaudeBot | 6% | 1% |
| CazoodleBot | 7% | — |
| Applebot-Extended | 6% | — |
| Bytespider | 5% | 1% |
| ChatGPT-User | 4% | 2% |
| PerplexityBot | 3% | 3% |
| anthropic-ai | 4% | 2% |
| Nutch | 6% | — |
| AhrefsBot | 6% | — |
| Exabot | 5% | — |
| Claude-Web | 3% | 1% |
| meta-externalagent | 4% | — |
| CopyRightCheck | 4% | — |
| EroCrawler | 4% | — |
Values are percentages of all 100 Computer Hardware sites surveyed. The wildcard (*) leads at 61% Disallow. Among named agents, MJ12bot leads at 11%, with GPTBot and CCBot close behind at 9% each.
Industry Cohort
Computer Hardware sits mid-table within the Retail & E-commerce cohort
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel & Fashion | 91% | 21% | 15% | 49% | 54% | 32% | 69% | 4% | Tier 3 |
| Beauty & Cosmetics | 91% | 30% | 36% | 40% | 31% | 30% | 76% | 13% | Tier 2 |
| Computer & Video Games | 94% | 27% | 26% | 44% | 22% | 13% | 81% | 23% | Tier 1 |
| Computer Hardware | 93% | 30% | 20% | 42% | 33% | 15% | 73% | 13% | Tier 2 |
| Computers & Electronics | 86% | 13% | 17% | 34% | 18% | 15% | 73% | 9% | Tier 2 |
| Consumer Electronics | 92% | 27% | 27% | 46% | 29% | 20% | 83% | 9% | Tier 2 |
| Equipment & Supplies | 96% | 27% | 31% | 41% | 26% | 14% | 68% | 8% | Tier 2 |
| Food & Beverages | 92% | 24% | 26% | 51% | 31% | 11% | 68% | 23% | Tier 2 |
| Furniture | 97% | 33% | 28% | 49% | 40% | 21% | 67% | 5% | Tier 2 |
| Jewelry & Luxury | 83% | 28% | 23% | 41% | 42% | 34% | 80% | 9% | Tier 2 |
| Packaging & Containers | 95% | 18% | 35% | 42% | 17% | 11% | 80% | 6% | Tier 1 |
| Retail | 96% | 19% | 15% | 51% | 33% | 20% | 85% | 29% | Tier 2 |
| Sporting Goods | 89% | 26% | 24% | 41% | 49% | 32% | 78% | 7% | Tier 2 |
| Sports | 98% | 11% | 15% | 61% | 23% | 11% | 89% | 33% | Tier 1 |
| Textiles & Nonwovens | 92% | 6% | 38% | 35% | 17% | 14% | 78% | 7% | Tier 1 |
| Tobacco | 98% | 30% | 52% | 38% | 30% | 15% | 76% | 3% | Tier 1 |
| Wholesalers & Liquidators | 94% | 24% | 22% | 44% | 30% | 13% | 80% | 7% | Tier 2 |
| Wine & Spirits | 95% | 24% | 28% | 47% | 32% | 15% | 84% | 14% | Tier 1 |
Across Retail & E-commerce, Computer Hardware's barrier rates are broadly in line with peers. WAF at 93%, JavaScript at 42%, and AI blocking at 13% all sit near the cohort median. Tier difficulty (mean 1.95) is below the group average.