Yahoo! Japan

Yahoo! Japan
Type of site	Web portal
Available in	Japanese
No. of locations	2 (Nagoya and Osaka)
Founder(s)	SoftBank (now SoftBank Group); Yahoo! Inc.;
Parent	Yahoo! Japan Corporation (1996–2023); LY Corporation (2023–present);
Subsidiaries	Netrust, Ltd.; ASKUL Corporation
URL	www.yahoo.co.jp
Commercial	Yes
Registration	Optional
Launched	April 1, 1996
Current status	Online

Yahoo! Japan (ヤフー, Yafū) is a Japanese web portal. Its search engine was the most-visited website in Japan, nearing monopolistic status.^[1]

According to The Japan Times, as of 2012, Yahoo! Japan had a footprint on the internet market in Japan. In terms of use as a search engine, however, it has never surpassed Google. The company is the second largest search engine used in Japan as of July 2021, with a market share of 19% behind Google's 77%.^[2]

The Yahoo! Japan search engine was a directory-type search engine, similar to Yahoo! in the United States. A crawler-type search engine was used as well, and as the popularity of the crawler-type search engine gradually increased, after October 3, 2005, Yahoo! Japan began utilizing only the crawler-type engine. On June 29, 2017, Yahoo! Japan announced that the directory-based search engine "Yahoo! Category", which had been in operation since its establishment, would be abolished on March 29, 2018.^[3]

As a crawler-type search engine, Yahoo! Japan initially used technology from the Japanese company Goo, which used Google's technology. The company later switched to using Yahoo Search Technology (YST), developed by Yahoo! in the US. In addition to serving as a standard search engine, Yahoo! Japan partnered with Twitter to provide real-time search for tweets.^[4] It also receives data feeds from partner companies; Cookpad and Naver information is displayed in search results. Yahoo! Search Custom Search was discontinued on March 31, 2019.^[5]

^ Matsutani, Minoru (24 April 2012). "Yahoo Japan: Same name, very different company". The Japan Times. Archived from the original on 27 October 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
^ "Search Engine Market Share by Company – Japan – Jan, 2010 – Aug, 2021". Archived from the original on 2023-06-09. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
^ "「Yahoo！カテゴリ」終了へ「役割終えた」". ITmedia ビジネスオンライン (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2022-09-22. Retrieved 2019-05-27.
^ 株式会社インプレス (2011-06-14). "Yahoo! JAPANがTwitterと戦略提携、ツイートのリアルタイム検索を提供開始" (in Japanese). INTERNET Watch. Archived from the original on 2023-04-18. Retrieved 2019-05-27.
^ "サービス終了のお知らせ". thanks.yahoo.co.jp. Archived from the original on 2018-07-21. Retrieved 2019-05-27.

[1] Matsutani, Minoru (24 April 2012). "Yahoo Japan: Same name, very different company". The Japan Times. Archived from the original on 27 October 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2016.

[2] "Search Engine Market Share by Company – Japan – Jan, 2010 – Aug, 2021". Archived from the original on 2023-06-09. Retrieved 2021-08-03.

[3] "「Yahoo！カテゴリ」終了へ「役割終えた」". ITmedia ビジネスオンライン (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2022-09-22. Retrieved 2019-05-27.

[4] 株式会社インプレス (2011-06-14). "Yahoo! JAPANがTwitterと戦略提携、ツイートのリアルタイム検索を提供開始" (in Japanese). INTERNET Watch. Archived from the original on 2023-04-18. Retrieved 2019-05-27.

[5] "サービス終了のお知らせ". thanks.yahoo.co.jp. Archived from the original on 2018-07-21. Retrieved 2019-05-27.

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