Website Translation for Japanese SEO: Weglot, Linguise, or ConveyThis

An existing website can gain Japanese URLs quickly and still fail the review that matters: whether those URLs are crawlable, whether the metadata is translated, and whether a named owner can reject Japanese copy before it goes live. Weglot, Linguise, and ConveyThis all promise multilingual websites. The useful comparison starts with the operational question, not the feature list.

Independent guide. This guide is based on current public documentation, not hands-on testing. Japan Legible has no commercial relationship with Weglot, Linguise, or ConveyThis. All product links are direct, non-affiliate links. Official pages were checked on August 11, 2026, and this guide makes no guarantee of search performance for any tool.

Short answer

For an existing site that needs a crawlable Japanese version, the first filter is technical: does the integration produce dedicated, server-rendered Japanese URLs? Weglot and ConveyThis both document that style of multilingual SEO implementation. Linguise positions itself around SEO-friendly translated pages, but the specified product pages did not verify its technical SEO details or its pricing, so this guide treats those points as unknown.

The second filter is editorial: where does a human review the Japanese copy, who has authority to change it, and what happens when the source site changes? Weglot centralizes editing in its translation workspace. ConveyThis puts a visual editor, glossary, and translation exclusions in its dashboard. Both keep the workflow outside the original CMS. If the team would rather review Japanese copy inside the existing CMS, or if Japan needs pages that do not exist in English, neither tool fixes that constraint.

Choose the tool that matches the way the team already works. Do not choose one merely because its dashboard looks complete.

The decision behind the tool

The visible task is translation. The operating decision is where the Japanese version lives and who controls it. Most teams are in one of three positions:

1. A market test needs a small Japanese surface: homepage, one product page, pricing, trust material, and a contact path.
2. The whole site should become multilingual while the original remains the source of truth.
3. Japan needs its own editorial and commercial system, with local pages, campaigns, and support content that diverge from the global site.

Tools like these fit the first two positions. As divergence grows, an external translation layer becomes a publishing constraint: every unique Japanese page must still be managed through the vendor's workflow, word counts, and language limits.

Shared ground: what Google asks for

Before comparing products, pin down what the search architecture must do. Google's multilingual-site guidance says to use different URLs for different language versions rather than switching content by cookie or browser setting. It also says to label variants with hreflang annotations or sitemaps, to avoid automatic redirects based on assumed language, and to give users explicit language-switch links.

Google's localized-versions guidance adds the mechanics: hreflang can be delivered through HTML link tags, HTTP headers, or XML sitemaps, and every language version should link back to all variants, including itself. Google also states that it determines page language from visible content, not from lang attributes or the URL alone. Translated pages must contain Japanese content and Japanese navigation, not a language tag bolted onto English copy.

Use those criteria as the evidence bridge. A vendor claim that it is "SEO-friendly" is not a specification. Ask what URLs are created, whether translations are in the served HTML, how hreflang is emitted, and which SEO fields are translated.

What the official pages actually say

Weglot: a documented SEO architecture with a clear integration boundary

Weglot's help center distinguishes three integration modes. The JavaScript snippet does not offer SEO benefits because translations are rendered client-side and are not crawlable. Subdomain and subdirectory integrations create dedicated URLs such as ja.example.com or example.com/ja/, serve translated HTML server-side, add hreflang tags automatically, and translate meta descriptions, image alt text, page titles, and structured data. Weglot notes that it does not include an x-default hreflang tag by default.

That integration boundary is the most useful fact here. Two sites can both use Weglot and end up with different indexability depending on installation. Confirm the deployment mode for the platform before assuming the URLs are crawlable.

Weglot's pricing page organizes plans by translated word volume and translated languages. On August 11, 2026, it displayed a free tier at 2,000 words and one translated language, Starter at about $17 per month for 10,000 words, Business at about $32 for 50,000 words and three languages, Pro at about $87 for 200,000 words and five languages, Advanced at $329 for one million words, and Extended at $769 for five million words. Enterprise was price on request; the page states USD figures are estimates based on euro pricing and annual billing includes two months free.

Linguise: positioning without the details you need

The specified Linguise pricing URL returned a "Page not found" page on August 11, 2026. This guide therefore does not rank Linguise by price; treat current plans as unverified and check them on the official site.

The specified multilingual SEO page is a Linguise guide dated December 18, 2025. It argues that each language should have its own topic clusters, local keyword research, and internal linking, and it positions Linguise as a way to combine translation with SEO-friendly language structures. Those are vendor strategy claims, not a verified product specification. The page does not document Linguise's URL model, hreflang handling, metadata translation, or editing ownership in enough detail for a technical decision.

That gap is itself useful. If Linguise interests you, the next step is not a demo of the language switcher. It is the integration documentation for the specific platform: what URLs are generated, whether pages are server-rendered, and who can edit what.

ConveyThis: explicit SEO mechanics and a wide pricing ladder

ConveyThis's pricing page states that its multilingual SEO follows Google's best practices: hreflang tags are added automatically, each language gets unique indexable URLs, meta titles and descriptions are translated, and JSON-LD structured data is translated as well. It also documents folders, subdomains, ?lang parameters, and second-level domains as URL options, plus a visual editor, glossary controls, translation exclusions, and export/import.

The same page showed a long pricing ladder. On August 11, 2026, monthly prices ranged from Free at 5,000 words and one language, through Starter at $12 with 30,000 words, Business at $24 with 100,000 words and three languages, Pro at $64 with 400,000 words, Optimum at $160 with one million words and 14 languages, to Extreme at $960 with ten million words and 100 languages. Annual billing was described as including two months free. Like Weglot, ConveyThis prices by translated volume; unlike Weglot, it gives the URL and metadata mechanics directly in the product FAQ.

Editing ownership: the part pricing pages hide

All three tools can create Japanese pages. None of them decides whether a Japanese claim is defensible. Compare the tools on where review happens and who can reject copy.

| Capability | What to look for | | --- | --- | | Review location | Dashboard, front-end visual editor, or export to another tool | | Terminology control | Glossary, translation memory, or per-language rules | | Team roles | Who can edit, approve, or publish Japanese | | Source change handling | What happens when the English site updates | | Quality boundary | What the vendor states about human review and pro translation |

Weglot's pricing page documents glossary rules, team members, translation memory, and access to professional translators. ConveyThis documents a visual editor, glossary, translation assignments, and export/import. Linguise's specified pages did not verify those controls, so confirm them before evaluation.

None of these features replaces a Japanese reviewer. The tool can make review faster; it cannot supply the judgment.

Pricing is a planning input, not the decision

Word-count plans look comparable until the actual site is counted. "Translated words" can be defined differently: Weglot counts unique words across all languages, while ConveyThis distinguishes machine-translated words from monthly translation requests. A fixed word bucket also says nothing about how many words the Japanese version will contain after a human rewrite.

| Product | Verified entry point, August 11, 2026 | Plan structure | | --- | --- | --- | | Weglot | Free at 2,000 words and one language; Starter about $17 per month | Words and languages per month | | Linguise | Not verified at the specified URL | Unknown | | ConveyThis | Free at 5,000 words and one language; Starter $12 per month | Words, languages, and requests per month |

Add the recurring costs that are easy to miss: terminology setup, review of pricing and trust pages, corrections after product changes, and the time spent confirming rendered URLs, hreflang reciprocity, canonicals, and sitemaps. A cheap plan with no reviewer is more expensive than it looks.

When none of them is the answer

These tools should not carry the decision when Japan needs a different information architecture. Local campaigns, domestic case studies, procurement documents, local payment explanations, and Japanese-only support content may not exist in English. Translation memory does not create that content.

They are also not substitutes for product localization. A translated marketing site cannot fix an English-only application, untranslated transactional email, or support that cannot operate in Japanese.

And none of them guarantees Japanese search demand. Crawlable URLs, metadata, and hreflang are prerequisites, not results.

A five-page evaluation

1. Pick the homepage, one product or use-case page, pricing, a trust page, and the contact path.
2. Install each candidate with the server-side integration for the platform, or exclude it if that mode is unavailable.
3. Check rendered HTML: dedicated Japanese URL, Japanese content, translated title and description, hreflang reciprocity, canonical, and sitemap inclusion.
4. Give one qualified reviewer authority to reject Japanese copy, and time them on the five pages.
5. Estimate monthly cost at the real word count and language count.
6. Do not measure success by pageviews alone; define a qualified lead or enquiry.

Who should choose what

Choose Weglot when the team wants a documented server-side SEO architecture, centralized editing, and predictable word and language pricing, and when the integration mode for the platform is confirmed as subdomain or subdirectory. Choose ConveyThis when explicit hreflang, translated metadata, and structured data claims matter, and when the visual editor and wide pricing ladder fit the site's scale. Choose Linguise only after the integration and pricing details are verified from current official pages; this guide could not verify them at the specified URLs.

All three are weaker fits when Japan needs a separate editorial system, when the site's platform only supports a client-side snippet, or when no one owns Japanese quality after launch.

Final recommendation

Run the five-page evaluation before comparing prices. The tool that wins the demo is not necessarily the tool whose rendered Japanese pages survive a qualified review. If the pilot shows that most work is controlled correction around a shared site, an external translation layer can be efficient. If it shows that Japan needs different pages and arguments, the bottleneck is not translation. No vendor's SEO claims remove that decision.

To turn that operating scope into a budget, use the recalculable 50-page SaaS localization cost model.

Review Weglot's current plans on the official site. Review ConveyThis's current plans on the official site.