海外はGoogle中心。さらに買い手は、ChatGPTなどのAI検索で調べ始めています。国内のYahoo/Google併用の前提のままでは、現地で見つけてもらえません。SEOに加えて、AIに引用される設計、つまりLLMOが必要です。
国内では、検索対策の答えは何年も前に決まっています。しかし海外では、前提が2つ変わります。1つは、多くの市場でYahooの存在感が小さく、Googleが中心であること。もう1つは、買い手がGoogleより先に、AIチャットで調べ始めていることです。国内の設定をそのまま持ち込むと、この2つを見落とします。
御社の状況は、こうではないでしょうか。現地に小さなチームがあり、想定ほど商談が増えず、本社にその理由を説明しなければならない。検索の予算は、立ち上げ以来、国内向けのテンプレートのまま動いている。それが海外の探し方に合っているかは、誰も確かめていない。
海外の探し方は、国内とは違います。Googleが中心なのは確かですが、その手前で、買い手がAIチャットに質問し、要約で答えを受け取るようになっています。国内の検索の型をそのまま写すのは、実は一つの「判断」です。この記事は、その判断を思い込みではなく、事実で下すためのものです。
国内の設定をそのまま写すことは、無意識の流用ではなく、一つの「判断」だ。
まず全体像です。多くの海外市場では、検索はGoogleが中心で、他のエンジンの比率は小さくなります。国内のようにYahooを大きく見込む必要は、たいていありません。ただし、それだけで終わりではありません。近年は、検索エンジンにたどり着く前に、AIチャットで調べ始める買い手が増えています。
見落とされがちなのが、このAI検索の動きです。買い手は「どの製品がよいか」をAIに聞き、要約された答えの中で名前が挙がるかどうかで、候補が絞られていきます。従来のSEOで検索順位を上げるだけでは、この要約の中に入れません。
AI検索には、従来の検索とは違う仕組みがあります。AIは、信頼できると判断した情報源を引用して、答えを組み立てます。つまり、上位表示を狙うのではなく、「引用・参照される情報」を用意することが要になります。これが、海外で見つけてもらうための新しい入口です。
とはいえ、従来の検索がなくなるわけではありません。買い手はAIで当たりをつけたあと、Googleで会社名や事例を確かめます。海外で見つけてもらうには、検索（SEO）とAI検索（LLMO）の両方を回す必要があります。片方だけでは、途中で候補から外れます。
Nearly one search in five in Japan happens somewhere other than Google.
Averages hide the part of this that should change your budget. The overall share treats a thumb-scroll on a train and a deliberate desktop research session as the same event. They are not, and the B2B buying journey weights heavily toward the second.
Look at the two views side by side. On mobile, Google's grip tightens to 86.37% and Bing all but disappears at 0.59%. On desktop, Bing climbs to 15.51%, more than double its overall figure. If your product gets evaluated on a phone during a commute, the mobile column is your reality and a Google-led plan is close to correct. If your product gets evaluated by a committee at their desks, reading specs and comparing vendors, the desktop column is your reality and ignoring Bing means conceding roughly one desktop search in six.
This is not an argument to spread budget thinly across three engines to feel thorough. It is the opposite. It is an argument to find out which column describes your actual buyer before you set the split, then concentrate spend where that buyer searches. The data tells you the question to ask; your own funnel tells you the answer.
Channel share tells you where Japanese buyers search. It does not tell you what they do once a search sends them somewhere, and for B2B that second question decides whether the click was worth anything. Japanese B2B buyers lean on the provider's own website as a primary information source, with 75% citing it, and on industry media sites, cited by 55%. The vendor site is doing more of the qualifying work here than the casual playbook assumes.
That has a direct consequence for how you read paid search performance. A click into a thin, machine-translated, or visibly foreign landing experience does not just convert worse. In a market where 75% of buyers expect the provider site to carry real, credible information, that click can actively cost you trust at the exact moment you paid to earn attention. The channel decision and the destination quality are the same decision. Buying the click without preparing the page is buying a worse impression at a premium.
This is also why the search-channel question cannot be settled in isolation. In the Japan Pipeline Method, Acquisition (which channel, which engine, which keywords) and Conversion (what the buyer meets when they arrive) are deliberately treated as adjacent phases rather than separate projects. The share data tells you where to show up. The buyer-behavior data tells you that showing up is half the work, and the cheaper half.
The channel decision and the destination quality are the same decision.
Source: ITmedia
Here is the operating principle, stated plainly so your team can act on it. Start with Google for nearly every engagement. At 82.17% overall and higher on mobile, it is where the volume, the data, and the fastest path to a readable signal live. You build there first, you instrument it properly, and you let it tell you who your buyer actually is before you spend a yen anywhere else.
Then you add the second engine on evidence, not ambition. Add Yahoo! Japan when the buyer profile or vertical points to it: established Japanese enterprises, older or more traditional decision makers, categories where the incumbent-user skew works in your favor. Weight toward Bing's desktop inventory when your category is researched at a desk and your own analytics confirm desktop sessions convert. The trigger in every case is a signal you can see, not a slide that says be everywhere.
The discipline is symmetrical, and that matters. The same evidence that justifies adding Yahoo! Japan for one client justifies not adding it for another. A consumer-skewed product researched on mobile may rationally stay Google-only, and saying so out loud is part of doing this honestly. The goal is not maximum channel count to look comprehensive in a status report. The goal is spend that lands where your buyer is and silence where they are not.
Turn the principle into a sequence your team can execute. First, define the buyer in device and profile terms, not personas in the abstract: are these people searching from a phone or a corporate desktop, younger digital-native staff or established decision makers who came up on the portal era. Second, build and instrument Google so it produces a clean conversion signal, not a click count. Third, read that signal for where qualified, converting traffic actually originates by device. Only then, fourth, decide whether Yahoo! Japan or Bing desktop earns budget, and size it to the evidence rather than the gut.
Notice what this sequence refuses to do. It does not copy your US split into Japan on day one. It does not add engines to feel thorough. It does not let an agency bill you for three platforms when your data supports one. Each step gates the next, and the second engine has to earn its place against a number you can show HQ.
If you would rather not run this cold, the free Japan Pipeline Teardown does exactly this read against your current setup: where your paid search budget is going, whether the channel split matches your actual buyer, and where qualified Japanese demand is being left unbid-on. It produces the evidence the board is asking for, which is the whole point. Decide from data, not a global template.
Phone or corporate desktop. Digital-native or portal-era decision maker. This sets which share column is your reality.
Highest volume and the fastest path to a clean, readable conversion signal. Measure pipeline, not clicks.
Find where qualified, converting traffic actually originates before spending a yen on a second engine.
Yahoo! Japan or Bing desktop earns budget only when buyer profile and your own data support it, sized to the number.
Start with Google, which held 82.17% of Japan search as of May 2025 and gives you the cleanest, fastest conversion signal. Add Yahoo! Japan, which held 8.94%, when your buyer profile points to it: established Japanese enterprises and older or more traditional decision makers, who skew toward the Yahoo! Japan portal. It runs on a separate ad platform from Google, so it is a second build, and you should justify that build with evidence from your own funnel rather than adding it by default.
On the overall figure of 6.95% it looks ignorable, but the device split changes that for B2B. Bing reaches 15.51% on desktop against just 0.59% on mobile, and desktop is where deliberate vendor research happens. If your category is evaluated by buyers at corporate desks rather than on phones, ignoring Bing concedes roughly one desktop search in six.
Because it usually copies a one-platform split into a market where nearly one search in five happens somewhere other than Google, and where buyer behavior differs underneath. Japanese B2B buyers rely heavily on the provider's own website, with 75% citing it as an information source, so a click into a thin or foreign landing page converts worse and can cost trust. The fix is to decide the channel mix from your own Japan data and to treat the landing destination as part of the same decision, not a global template applied after the fact.
Define your buyer by device and profile, build and instrument Google first so it produces a real conversion signal, read that signal for where qualified traffic originates, and only then decide whether Yahoo! Japan or Bing desktop earns budget. Each step gates the next, so the second engine has to justify itself against a number you can show HQ. The free Japan Pipeline Teardown runs this read against your current setup and shows where qualified demand is being left unbid-on.
Thirty minutes with our senior team. We look at your offer, your funnel and your tracking in Japan, and hand you a ranked fix list. No pitch.
