Search a Japanese B2B software category and look at the first ten results. Comparison media — sites whose entire business is ranking and reviewing software you did not choose to be listed on — usually hold two or three of them, often near the top, and many of the vendor results are themselves comparison articles listing competitors.
Many foreign SaaS companies plan to outrank them. In our view, that is the wrong objective, and it wastes the first two quarters.
The layer, and why it is stronger here
Comparison sites exist in most markets. In Japanese B2B software they occupy an unusual amount of the results page, for reasons that look structural rather than accidental.
- Japanese buyers tend to compare exhaustively before contacting anyone. The internal proposal is expected to show that alternatives were considered. A page that lists alternatives is therefore doing the buyer’s job for them.
- These sites carry reviews from verified business users, often unnamed but with the reviewer’s industry and company size stated. That is the kind of verification many Japanese readers look for, and a vendor page structurally cannot provide it.
- They are large, old domains covering thousands of products. A new Japanese subdirectory is unlikely to displace them on a category term within a year, or even two.
So the category query — the one your marketing team wants — is largely unavailable. What is available is your position inside the pages that hold it.
Reframing the objective
| The usual objective | The one that works better |
|---|---|
| Rank first for the category term. | Be accurately and favorably described on the pages that already rank for it. |
| Beat the comparison sites. | Treat them as a distribution channel with its own measurement. |
| Win every query. | Win the queries where a vendor page is the right answer, and concede the rest deliberately. |
Being third in a comparison article that your buyer actually reads usually beats being first on a page few people open. That is not a consolation prize; for a new entrant it is often the faster route to being considered at all.
Which queries are still yours
Plenty, and they tend to be better qualified than the category term.
- Your own product name, in every script variant. Latin, katakana, and the abbreviations people actually type. Comparison sites often rank for these too — make sure you rank above them.
- Integration and compatibility queries. Does it work with the Japanese accounting package, the Japanese payroll system, the domestic tool your buyer already runs. Comparison sites tend to cover these shallowly or not at all.
- Implementation and operational questions. Migration, onboarding, what the first month looks like. These are asked after the shortlist and are often answered badly.
- Regulatory and procurement questions. Data residency, security assessment documentation, contract terms in Japanese. Gating questions that a comparison table cannot hold.
- The problem, before the category exists in the buyer’s mind. Someone with the problem has not yet decided they need this category of product. That query is upstream of the comparison layer entirely.
The last one is often where a foreign entrant has the best odds, and it is the same pattern we described for consumer brands in where the demand actually sits. The bottom of the funnel is occupied. Much of the value is above it.
Working with the comparison layer
- Find out what they currently say about you. Many vendors are listed without ever having engaged, with copy scraped from an English site and a feature table that is two versions out of date.
- Correct the free listing before buying anything. Accuracy is usually available at no cost, and it delivers much of the benefit.
- Ask satisfied Japanese customers to review you there. Slow, and it compounds. Reviews are the part of these pages a competitor cannot copy.
- Evaluate paid placement as a media buy, not as SEO. It has a cost per lead and should be measured like one. Judging it by ranking movement can mislead you in both directions.
The part that is genuinely yours to lose
Once a Japanese buyer has a shortlist, they usually visit each vendor’s site to answer the questions the comparison table could not. Pricing logic. Security and compliance documentation. Support hours and language. Contract and renewal terms.
Foreign SaaS sites in Japan frequently answer none of these in Japanese. One common reason is that the global site answers them in English and nobody decided which pages needed translating. The buyer leaves, and the comparison site’s summary often becomes the version of you that goes into the proposal.
In our experience, that is the failure that costs deals, and it is cheaper to fix than any ranking problem on this page.
Common questions
Should we pay for placement on comparison media?
Often worth testing, after the free listing is accurate. Set it up with its own tracking and judge it on qualified inquiries over a full quarter.
Can we ask to be removed if the listing is unfavorable?
You can ask, and correcting it is usually the better outcome. Absence from the page your buyers read is rarely a neutral position.
How long until we can rank for the category term ourselves?
Probably longer than your first budget cycle, and it is rarely the right target. Depth on the queries listed above tends to produce qualified traffic sooner and hold it better.
Does this apply outside software?
The same structure appears in many Japanese B2B categories. Software is where we see it most concentrated.
Working on Japan?
Nihongo Search is published by Amanaut, Inc., a small Japanese SEO and content company in Tokyo working with companies entering the Japanese market, including B2B software sold into Japanese enterprises. The buying-side structure is covered in B2B vs. B2C SEO in Japan, and the full sequence in our guide to SEO in Japan. More about how we work.
Last reviewed: October 2026.
