Naver Japan ended services on Dec 18

[iomfan]

The Japanese offshoot of the Korean company Naver, with its search engine (UA "Yeti"?) and other services, has apparently suspended all those services on December 18.
Announcement still up at [naver.jp...]

[bill]

Good catch iomfan!

This is not the first time Naver Japan stopped its search services [webmasterworld.com]. The first time was in 2005.

Then in 2006, we heard that Naver was going to return to the Japan search market. [webmasterworld.com] They kept talking about their return to the Japan serch market until 2009. [webmasterworld.com] Finally, in the summer of 2009 Naver did return to the Japan search market. [webmasterworld.com]

Then we didn't hear much from Naver Japan in terms of search. They never sent my sites much traffic. But in 2011, they launched the LINE mobile chat application which has taken off worldwide.

In April 2013, we heard that Naver Japan was working with Yahoo Japan. [webmasterworld.com]

The change in Naver Japan's direction toward more social media and mobile makes sense. Their search only sent my sites a handful of visitors over the past year, and they are once again exiting the Japan search market. I wonder if they will try again some day...