I pulled Semrush data for five popular software keywords and looked at who's actually ranking in the top 10. The result: most of the top spots aren't held by actual software companies. They're held by comparison sites, certification bodies, and tools ranking outside their category with listicles.
This lines up with what Lily Ray recently found in her Substack research. After the January ranking volatility, several well-known SaaS and B2B brands lost 30–50% of their organic visibility. The pattern among the hardest-hit sites: they were all publishing self-promotional listicles at scale. One site she analyzed had 267. Another had 340.
Her research piqued my curiosity about what the SERPs actually look like right now. So I checked five keywords: project management software, CRM software, email marketing software, productivity tools, and keyword research tools.
Here's what I found.
The SERPs are full of sites ranking for keywords they have no business ranking for
For "project management software," only three of the top 10 organic results are actual PM tools: Microsoft at #5, Trello at #8, and Wrike at #9.
The other seven spots belong to an informational site publishing a "top 10" listicle at #1, an agile certification body at #2, an editorial review site at #3, a software recommendation platform at #6, and Zapier at #7 with a blog post about PM software.
Seven out of ten results from sites that aren't project management tools.
For "email marketing software," the top two results are emailvendorselection. com and emailtooltester. com, both of which are comparison sites. Neither sells email marketing software. Zapier shows up again at #6 with another listicle.
The SERPs for high-value software keywords are dominated by sites with no topical authority.
And if Google's December 2025 core update is tightening the "relevance" signal (and the January volatility strongly suggests it is), many of these rankings are on borrowed time.
So are listicles dead?
No.
But the self-promotional, spray-and-pray version is a different story.
A caveat worth stating: this is five keywords, not a definitive study. Rankings fluctuate. Core updates sometimes reverse. Google's direction is never as clean as a single data pull suggests. But the pattern here is consistent with the broader signals Google has been sending over the past two years and with what Lily Ray found across a much larger dataset.
The direction seems clear, even if the timeline isn't.
Reddit is outranking G2 and Capterra
If listicle-heavy sites and tangential products start losing ground, you'd expect G2 and Capterra to fill the gap. That's what I expected too.
The data tells a different story.
G2 doesn't appear in the top 10 for any of the five keywords I analyzed. It's sitting at position #31 for "project management software" and #35 for "CRM software." Capterra is at #38 for "email marketing software." Not even close to page one.
Reddit, on the other hand, ranks in the top 10 for three of five keywords: position #4 for "project management software," #3 for "email marketing software," and positions #2 and #8 for "productivity tools."
Reddit threads are outranking both the major review platforms and the products themselves.
This aligns with something Google has been signaling for a while: they value authentic, first-hand experiences. Reddit threads are messy, unpolished, and sometimes contradictory. But they're real. People sharing what they actually use, love, and hate.
For B2B SaaS companies, this has two implications.
First, your product needs to show up in these conversations organically. Reddit's community will destroy you for astroturfing. But if people are recommending your tool without being prompted, you're building a moat no listicle strategy can match.
Second, Reddit presence might be a better signal for product-market fit than any ranking tracker. If users are advocating for your product in threads you didn't start, something is working.
For "keyword research tools," actual product pages dominate, no listicles needed
Of the five keywords I researched, this one was the outlier.
Seven out of ten results are actual keyword research tools: Semrush, Wordtracker, SpyFu, KeywordTool.io, Google Keyword Planner, and Mangools. These companies rank with their product and tool pages, not blog posts or listicles.
No Reddit thread in the top 10. No G2 or Capterra listing. No random site publishing a "best tools" roundup from outside the industry.
The takeaway: when enough strong product pages compete for a keyword, Google doesn't need to rely on listicles, review sites, or forum discussions to fill the top 10. The products speak for themselves.
Whether this previews where Google is heading for all software keywords, we can't say for certain. But given the direction of the December core update, it's worth watching closely.
You don't need to outpublish HubSpot. Do these instead.
If you're a B2B SaaS company competing against bigger players, this shift is in your favor.
If Google is moving toward rewarding relevance and topical authority over listicle volume, the advantage tilts toward focused companies.
Focus your content on keywords within your product category. If you're an email marketing tool, go deep on email marketing keywords. Don't spread thin across CRM, project management, and productivity tools just because the search volume looks attractive.
Build your product pages to rank. The "keyword research tools" SERP shows that strong product pages can outrank listicles. Invest in making your product page informative, well-structured, and useful, not just a signup form with a headline.
Get your product into genuine conversations. Reddit is ranking because Google trusts real user discussions. Organic advocacy from your users builds defensibility that content marketing alone can't replicate.
Rethink listicles outside your category. If those listicles are driving real pipeline today, I'm not saying burn it down overnight. But the data suggests the window is closing, and building your next quarter's traffic plan around them is a risk.
To recap:
I researched the top 10 organic results for five popular software keywords. Most of the top spots are held by non-product sites and tangential companies ranking with listicles, not by the actual tools themselves. Reddit is outranking G2 and Capterra across the board. And the one keyword where actual product pages dominate might be showing us where things are headed.
The listicle era isn't dead. But the self-serving, spray-and-pray version of it is on borrowed time.
Got questions or observations from your own data? I'd love to hear from you. Just reply to this email.
To your startup's success,
Shehu AbdulGaniy
Founder, Your Content Mart
Want to hire me? I help B2B SaaS companies drive user signups and paying customers from organic search (and now AI search). Companies I've worked with include Copysmith, OneCal, and SweetProcess. Click here to set up an intro call.
P.S: If you learned something new from this issue, invite your colleagues and friends to join The SaaS SEO Insights through this link. Counting on your support 🤝
P.P.S: I noticed that AI Overviews are pulling from different source types than organic results for these same keywords. That's coming in another issue.
