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 is a Japanese multinational Investment company, investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services ...

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 , formerly the is one of the sections of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It was formerly an independent stock exchange. JASDAQ is not related to NASDAQ in the United States, but has operated an electronic trading system similar to NASDAQ. History In ...

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 Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization where a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event (most often sports venues), typical ...

for the

Fukuoka Dome , officially the is a domed baseball field located in Chūō-ku, Fukuoka, Japan. Home to the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, the 40,000 seat stadium was built in 1993 and was originally named Fukuoka Dome. It is Japan's first stadium built with a retra ...

in 2005, renaming the dome as the "Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome". The "Yahoo Dome" is the home field for the

Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks The are a Japanese professional baseball team based in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture. They compete in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) as a member of the Pacific League. Founded on February 22, 1938, as the Nankai Club, being the first Kansai t ...

, 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 Verizon Communications Inc. ( ), is an American telecommunications company headquartered in New York City. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the ...

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 ! Mail (also written as Yahoo Mail) is an email service offered by the American company Yahoo, Inc. The service is free for personal use, with an optional monthly fee for additional features. Business email was previously available with the Yah ...

Yahoo Finance Yahoo Finance is a media property that is part of the Yahoo network. It provides financial news, data and commentary including stock quotes, press releases, financial reports, and original content. It also offers online tools for personal fina ...

, 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 AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. The service traces its history to an online ...

to form a new subsidiary called Oath (later renamed

Verizon Media Verizon Communications Inc. ( ), is an American telecommunications company headquartered in New York City. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the ...

). However, the acquisition did not include Yahoo's stakes in

Alibaba Group Alibaba Group Holding Limited, branded as Alibaba (), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in E-commerce in China, e-commerce, retail, Internet, and technology. Founded on 28 June 1999 in Hangzho ...

, Yahoo Japan, or other minority investments. These assets remained under Yahoo, which was renamed

Altaba Altaba Inc. was a non-diversified, closed-end management investment company based in New York City that was formed from the remains of the first incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. after Verizon had acquired old Yahoo's Internet business. Verizon complet ...

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 The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the ''Agreement on the European Economic Area'', an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union's single market to member states of the European Free Trade Asso ...

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 Y!mobile is a Japanese mobile phone operator. Y!mobile is a brand used by SoftBank Corp., a subsidiary of Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank Group Corporation, that provides mobile telecommunications and ADSL services. The current CEO ...

: 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 Mobile telephony is the provision of wireless Telephony, telephone services to Mobile phone, mobile phones, distinguishing it from fixed-location telephony provided via landline phones. Traditionally, telephony specifically refers to Telephon ...

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 ! Mail (also written as Yahoo Mail) is an email service offered by the American company Yahoo, Inc. The service is free for personal use, with an optional monthly fee for additional features. Business email was previously available with the Yah ...

, 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 A file-hosting service, also known as cloud-storage service, online file-storage provider, or cyberlocker, is an internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. These services allow users to upload files that can be accessed o ...

), Yahoo! Mobage (a social networking service), Yahoo! Wisdom Bag (similar to

Yahoo! Answers Yahoo! Answers was a community-driven question-and-answer (Q&A) website or knowledge market owned by Yahoo! where users would ask questions and answer those submitted by others, and upvote them to increase their visibility. Questions were orga ...

), 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 The General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), abbreviated GDPR, is a European Union regulation on information privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of ...

. Some subsidiary services such as Yahoo! JAPAN Mail remained functional, although limited.

Gallery

Sky ja767a yahoo japan.jpg, A Yahoo! JAPAN-branded

Boeing 767 The Boeing 767 is an American wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The aircraft was launched as the 7X7 program on July 14, 1978, the prototype first flew on September 26, 1981, and it was certified ...

operated by

Skymark Airlines Skymark Airlines is a Japanese airline headquartered at Haneda Airport in Ōta, Tokyo, Ōta, Tokyo, Japan. It operates scheduled services with a main base at Haneda Airport with another base at Kobe Airport where it is the dominant carrier. It a ...

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

baseball team Yahoo! Japan's neon sign at Roppongi.jpg, Yahoo! JAPAN

neon sign In the signage industry, neon signs are electric signs lighted by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for neon lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in Decem ...

Roppongi Roppongi (, , 'six trees') is a district of Minato, Tokyo, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, famous for the affluent Roppongi Hills development area and popular night club scene. A few foreign embassies are located near Roppongi, and the night life is popu ...

, Tokyo Less than iPad. (6447310531).jpg, Yahoo! JAPAN website on a

Sony Tablet S The Tablet S is a tablet computer released by Sony in September 2011. Featuring a "unique asymmetric design", the Tablet S runs Google's Android 3.1 Honeycomb operating system and features a multitouch display, 1 GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual ...

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 ...