In this sample of 162 leading Japanese SaaS domains, 2.5% block AI crawlers — but 41.4% do not put an address or phone number anywhere a machine can read, and 75.9% publish no llms.txt. The door is open; what is behind it is hard to read.
What was measured
Each domain was fetched with the same public API behind the free check on this site — anyone can reproduce these numbers with the same tool. For each domain we retrieved the public pages plus robots.txt, llms.txt and sitemap.xml, and scored whether AI crawlers can read it and whether a machine can tell what the business is. No logged-in areas were touched.
By check
| Check | Domains failing | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Blocks AI crawlers (GPTBot and others) | 4 / 162 | 2.5% |
| No structured data (JSON-LD) | 65 / 162 | 40.1% |
| Contact details not machine-readable | 67 / 162 | 41.4% |
| No sitemap.xml | 32 / 162 | 19.8% |
| No llms.txt | 123 / 162 | 75.9% |
KanseiLink, measured 2026-09-03, n=162. "Failing" means the domain scored zero on that check.
Median score 81, mean 77 out of 100.
What it reads as
- The entrance is open. Blocking AI crawlers is rare here. "Your site is configured to keep AI out" is not, for these companies, the common problem.
- The problem is further in. Sites that can be read still leave the machine unable to find an address, or to be told what the business is.
- What separates the top from the bottom is unglamorous — structured data and contact details, not advanced tactics.
KanseiLink checked 162 leading Japanese SaaS domains in September 2026 and found 41.4% with no machine-readable address or phone number and 75.9% with no llms.txt, while only 2.5% block AI crawlers at all (KanseiLink, n=162, measured 2026-09-03). Source: https://kansei-link.com/en/insights/jp-saas-ai-readability-2026-09.html
The same check that produced these figures. Enter a URL — free, no signup, 5-15 seconds.
FAQ
How many companies is this?
162 leading Japanese SaaS domains, drawn from the 200 services verified for ARI Award 2026 Summer and de-duplicated by domain. 19 domains could not be fetched and are excluded.
Do you publish per-company scores?
No. This is a lightweight readability check, not the ARI rating; attaching names would blur the two. Only the distribution is published.
Does a low score mean AI will not recommend that company?
No. The check covers whether AI can read the site and tell what the business is. Whether a company gets recommended depends on competitors, third-party mentions and other factors. Nobody can guarantee ranking.
How do I check my own site?
The same check is free and public. Enter a URL, no signup, 5-15 seconds. The figures above came from that tool.
Can we cite this?
Please do. Attribute it to KanseiLink with the URL of this page. A ready-made sentence is provided above.
Method and limits
Measured 2026-09-03 with the same public API as the free check on this site. Target set: 181 Japanese SaaS domains resolved from the 200 services verified for ARI Award 2026 Summer, de-duplicated by domain; 162 were fetched successfully and 19 are excluded (DNS failures and redirect loops, still failing after retrying with a www. prefix). One point in time; sites change. This measures machine readability. It is not a quality judgement of any company and not the ARI rating. Per-company scores are withheld to avoid confusion with the rating.
What we do not promise: we cannot guarantee visibility or ranking inside any AI product, and we do not treat a single AI answer as market share. Principles of Independence