Overview
JavaScript and CAPTCHA both elevate Distance Learning's active barrier profile
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 97% |
| Antibot | 27% |
| CAPTCHA | 37% |
| JavaScript | 43% |
| Rate Limiting | 26% |
| TLS | 16% |
WAF leads at 97%. JavaScript (43%) and CAPTCHA (37%) together form a multi-layer active stack — more than most sectors deploy alongside WAF.
Barrier Landscape
WAF leads Distance Learning at 97% — JavaScript is the main secondary layer
| Value | |
|---|---|
| WAF | 97% |
| Antibot | 27% |
| CAPTCHA | 37% |
| JavaScript | 43% |
| Rate Limiting | 26% |
| TLS | 16% |
| Has robots.txt | 85% |
| Blocks AI crawlers | 25% |
WAF dominates at 97%. JavaScript (43%) leads active secondary barriers, followed by CAPTCHA (37%). The remaining three barriers all sit at or below 27% — a concentrated rather than broadly stacked profile.
Two-barrier stacks are Distance Learning's most common security posture
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 barriers | 3% |
| 1 barrier | 28% |
| 2 barriers | 32% |
| 3 barriers | 15% |
| 4 barriers | 5% |
| 5 barriers | 13% |
| 6 barriers | 4% |
32% of Distance Learning sites carry exactly 2 barriers. 37% stack three or more. 3% carry none — a low share of unprotected sites for this sector.
Distance Learning is predominantly Easy to access — with a notable Moderate minority
| Mean recommended tier | |
|---|---|
| All sites | 1.70 |
A mean recommended tier of 1.70 and a median of Easy place Distance Learning around the middle of the sectors surveyed. 43% of sites are Simple to access; 10% require Moderate or above.
Easy is the most common access tier across Distance Learning sites
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 1 - Simple | 43.4% |
| 2 - Easy | 46.5% |
| 3 - Moderate | 8.1% |
| 4 - Complex | 1% |
| 5 - Advanced | 1% |
Easy (46%) is the most common tier. Simple and Easy together account for 90% of sites, while 8% land at Moderate and 2% at Complex or Advanced.
robots.txt
Most Distance Learning sites publish a robots.txt — coverage above the norm
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Publish a valid robots.txt | 85% |
85% of Distance Learning sites publish a valid robots.txt. The 15% without a file leave crawl policy undefined — a lower gap than the cross-sector average of around 24%.
Distance Learning sites name a handful of agents in robots.txt — few commit to comprehensive policies
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| 0 | 21% |
| 1 | 36% |
| 2–4 | 16% |
| 5–9 | 12% |
| 10–15 | 6% |
| 16+ | 9% |
The mean of 8.7 named agents reflects limited bot-policy investment in Distance Learning. 21% of sites name no agents; 36% name exactly one. Only 9% maintain a list of 16 or more named bots.
AI crawlers draw the most robots.txt attention in Distance Learning
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| AI crawlers | 26% |
| SEO / search indexing | 16% |
| SEO audit tools | 10% |
| Commercial scrapers | 5% |
| Social / content scrapers | 7% |
| Archive / research crawlers | 6% |
| Monitoring / uptime bots | 1% |
AI crawlers are mentioned by 26% of Distance Learning sites — the leading bot category. SEO / search indexing follows at 16%. Figures are percentages of all 100 Distance Learning sites including those with no robots.txt.
Uniform per-agent rules dominate Distance Learning robots.txt files
| % of sites | |
|---|---|
| Uniform per-agent rules | 53% |
| Path-level mixed rules | 29% |
| Allow-only (no Disallow rules) | 2% |
| Mixed AI posture | 1% |
| Blanket Disallow: / | 1% |
Uniform per-agent rules lead at 53%, with path-level mixed rules at 29%. Mixed AI posture (1%) and blanket Disallow (1%) are minimal.
AI crawlers are among the most-targeted agents in Distance Learning robots.txt
| Disallowed | Allowed (whitelisted) | |
|---|---|---|
| * | 71% | 31% |
| GPTBot | 19% | — |
| CCBot | 14% | — |
| Baiduspider | 10% | 2% |
| Applebot-Extended | 8% | — |
| Mediapartners-Google | 2% | 6% |
| Twitterbot | 4% | 3% |
| Yandex | 7% | — |
| Bytespider | 7% | — |
| magpie-crawler | 5% | 2% |
| dotbot | 5% | 2% |
| SemrushBot | 5% | 2% |
| ClaudeBot | 6% | — |
| Google-Extended | 6% | — |
| Googlebot | 4% | 2% |
| Sogou web spider | 4% | 2% |
| ChatGPT-User | 5% | — |
| Amazonbot | 5% | — |
| anthropic-ai | 5% | — |
| cohere-ai | 5% | — |
| BLEXBot | 3% | 2% |
| SurdotlyBot | 3% | 2% |
| NaverBot | 3% | 2% |
| Yeti | 3% | 2% |
| BUbiNG | 3% | 2% |
Values are percentages of all 100 Distance Learning sites surveyed. The wildcard (*) leads at 71% Disallow. Among named agents, GPTBot, CCBot lead the Disallow list — reflecting direct targeting of AI training and indexing bots.
Industry Cohort
Distance Learning leads the Education cohort on AI-blocking policy
| WAF | Antibot | CAPTCHA | JavaScript | Rate Limit | TLS | robots.txt | Blocks AI | Tier | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distance Learning | 97% | 27% | 37% | 43% | 26% | 16% | 85% | 25% | Tier 2 |
| Education | 98% | 17% | 18% | 37% | 18% | 10% | 81% | 15% | Tier 2 |
| Foreign Language | 96% | 15% | 20% | 42% | 14% | 13% | 82% | 6% | Tier 1 |
| Libraries | 92% | 16% | 9% | 36% | 16% | 11% | 69% | 8% | Tier 1 |
| Reference | 81% | 15% | 17% | 31% | 16% | 3% | 60% | 17% | Tier 1 |
| Science | 90% | 15% | 11% | 35% | 15% | 9% | 79% | 10% | Tier 2 |
| Training & Certification | 93% | 15% | 19% | 41% | 17% | 11% | 75% | 7% | Tier 1 |
Distance Learning's 25% AI-blocking rate in robots.txt is the highest in the Education cohort. WAF (97%) and JavaScript (43%) sit at the cohort on technical barriers.