is a Japanese

web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...

. It was the most-visited website in Japan, nearing monopolistic status. According to ''

The Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

'', as of 2012, Yahoo! Japan had a footprint on the internet market in Japan. In terms of use as a

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

, 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%. 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. 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 Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

to provide real-time search for tweets. It also receives data feeds from partner companies; Cookpad and

Naver Naver (; stylized as NAVER) is a South Korean online platform operated by the Naver Corporation. The company's products include a search engine, email hosting, blogs, maps, and mobile payment. History Naver was the first Korean web provide ...

information is displayed in search results. Yahoo! Search Custom Search was discontinued on March 31, 2019.

History

Yahoo! and SoftBank formed Yahoo! Japan in January 1996 to establish the first

in Japan. Yahoo! Japan went live on April 1, 1996. Yahoo! Japan was listed on JASDAQ in November 1997. In January 2000, it became the first stock in Japanese history to trade for more than ¥100 million per share. The company was listed on the

Tokyo Stock Exchange The , abbreviated as Tosho () or TSE/TYO, is a stock exchange located in Tokyo, Japan. The exchange is owned by Japan Exchange Group (JPX), a holding company that it also lists (), and operated by Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc., a wholly owned sub ...

in October 2003 and became part of the

Nikkei 225 The Nikkei 225, or , more commonly called the ''Nikkei'' or the ''Nikkei index'' (), is a stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). It is a price-weighted index, operating in the Japanese yen, Japanese Yen (JP¥), and its compone ...

stock market index In finance, a stock index, or stock market index, is an Index (economics), index that measures the performance of a stock market, or of a subset of a stock market. It helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calcul ...

in 2005. Yahoo! Japan acquired the naming rights for the Fukuoka Dome in 2005, renaming the dome as the "Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome". The "Yahoo Dome" is the home field for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, a professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

team, majorly owned by SoftBank. Since 2010, Yahoo! Japan's search engine has been based on Google's search technology. In exchange, Google receives user activity data from Yahoo! Japan's various products. In 2017, Verizon Communications completed its acquisition of Yahoo's core internet business for approximately $4.83 billion in cash. Yahoo's operating business, which included popular products like Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Finance, and

Tumblr Tumblr (pronounced "tumbler") is a microblogging and Social networking service, social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and is owned by American company Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content ...

, was merged with Verizon's existing media subsidiary AOL to form a new subsidiary called Oath (later renamed Verizon Media). However, the acquisition did not include Yahoo's stakes in Alibaba Group, Yahoo Japan, or other minority investments. These assets remained under Yahoo, which was renamed Altaba and became a publicly traded investment company. Importantly, Yahoo Japan, which had operated as a separate joint venture, was not affected by Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo's core business. Yahoo Japan continued to use the Yahoo brand and operate independently. The deal marked the end of Yahoo's run as an independent company after over 20 years. Despite the acquisition, Yahoo Japan remained a separate entity, maintaining its own branding and operations distinct from Verizon's ownership of Yahoo's U.S. business. Yahoo Japan's services are not available in the European Economic Area and the UK since 6 April 2022, due to "excessive regulatory burden". Yahoo Japan, whose partnership with Google on search engine technology is set to expire in 2025, is considering switching to South Korean company

's search engine technology.

Design

Yahoo! Japan continues to use a site design similar to the one used internationally prior to 2007, as well as the red Yahoo logo that was used by the international Yahoo brand before 2013. The company has maintained a consistent look and feel over the years, even as the international Yahoo brand has evolved.

Services

Yahoo! Japan currently offers various web-based services and apps for its customers, including the following: * Ymobile: Ymobile Corporation (ワイモバイル株式会社), stylized Y!mobile, is a subsidiary of Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank Group Corporation that provides mobile telecommunications and

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over Copper wire, copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem ...

services. The current CEO of the company is Ken Miyauchi. It was formed in 2014 through the merger of Willcom and eAccess, and uses the Y! moniker brand from Yahoo! Japan, which is partly-owned by SoftBank. * Yahoo! Japan Mail: maintains the classic look of Yahoo! Mail, but remains a separate service operated in Japan. Another notable change is the 10 GB storage limit, in contrast to Yahoo! Mail's 1 TB of storage and its former unlimited-storage offering. * Yahoo! Japan Auctions (ヤフオク！): Japan's largest Internet auction service. Previously known as Yahoo! Auction and Yafuoku. * Yahoo! Japan T-Point: A rewards program that allows users to earn and redeem points for goods or cash. * Yahoo! Premium: A paid service allowing users to obtain certain benefits, including the ability to bid on certain auction listings, and various premium features with Yahoo! Wallet (which can be used in conjunction with Japan Net Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, and Rakuten Bank) and Yahoo! points. Other Yahoo! Japan services include or have included Yahoo! Japan Bookstore, Yahoo! Japan News, Yahoo! Japan

GeoCities GeoCities, later Yahoo! GeoCities, was a web hosting service that allowed users to create and publish websites for free and to browse user-created websites by their theme or interest, active from 1994 to 2009. GeoCities was started in November 1 ...

(discontinued in March 2019), Yahoo! Japan Toto (a sports lottery site), Yahoo! Japan GyaO (a video on-demand service, discontinued in March 2023), Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo! Travel, Yahoo! Roko (a mapping and review service), Yahoo! Box (a cloud storage service), Yahoo! Mobage (a social networking service), Yahoo! Wisdom Bag (similar to Yahoo! Answers), and Yahoo! Browser (an androidbased web browser). From April 6, 2022, the home page blocked users from the EEA and the UK, apparently due to the General Data Protection Regulation. Some subsidiary services such as Yahoo! JAPAN Mail remained functional, although limited.

Gallery

Sky ja767a yahoo japan.jpg, A Yahoo! JAPAN-branded Boeing 767 operated by Skymark Airlines at

Osaka International Airport , often referred to as , is the primary domestic airport for the Kansai region of Japan, including its major cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe. It is the airport closest to Osaka, being 11 km (7 mi) north of Ōsaka Station, Osaka Stati ...

in 2000 Fukuoka Yahoo!Japan Dome.JPG, The Fukuoka Yahoo! JAPAN Dome, home of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks baseball team Yahoo! Japan's neon sign at Roppongi.jpg, Yahoo! JAPAN neon sign in Roppongi, Tokyo Less than iPad. (6447310531).jpg, Yahoo! JAPAN website on a Sony Tablet S

References

External links

Yahoo! Japan
{{Authority control Internet properties established in 1996 Japanese brands Japanese entertainment websites Japanese-language websites Liberal media in Japan Mass media companies based in Tokyo Naver Corporation SoftBank Group Telecommunications companies based in Tokyo Video on demand services

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...