Major search engines in Japan

which are they?

[Adam_C]

Quick one for the JP experts...

which are the major search engines in Japan?

I would assume:

google.co.jp (google)
yahoo.co.jp (google)
msn.co.jp (inktomi? looksmart?)

who else?

Any figures/rough percentages would be greatly appreciated.

[Adam_C]

just seen this [webmasterworld.com] thread which more or less covers it

from this post...

Google . . . . 69%
Yahoo! Japan . 68%
Goo. . . . . . 33%
Infoseek . . . 23%
MSN. . . . . . 13%
Excite . . . . 12%
Biglobe . . . . 9%
Lycos Japan . . 8%
FreshEYE. . . . 5%
NAVER . . . . . 2%
Others. . . . . 1%

Could someone tell me who provides the data for these search engines?

It seems to me that Infoseek is using google JP. Don't know about Yahoo though. Goo? MSN? Excite?

[kapow]

I'm interested too. Just launched my first Japanese site.

[bill]

Could someone tell me who provides the data for these search engines?

[b]SE[/b]. . . . . . . . [b]Source[/b]. . . . . . . [b]PPC[/b]
Google. . . . . . Google. . . . . . . AdWords
Yahoo! Japan. . . Google/Yahoo. . . . AdWords/Overture
Goo . . . . . . . Inktomi/Goo . . . . Overture
Infoseek. . . . . Infoseek. . . . . . Overture
MSN . . . . . . . Inktomi/LookSmart . Overture
Excite. . . . . . Google/LookSmart. . AdWords
Biglobe . . . . . Google/LookSmart. . AdWords
Lycos Japan . . . Infoseek/LookSmart. Overture
FreshEYE. . . . . TOCC/Inktomi. . . . Overture
NAVER . . . . . . Naver . . . . . . . n/a

[edited by: Woz at 4:08 am (utc) on Oct. 7, 2003]
[edit reason] formatting [/edit]

[asinah]

google and yahoo are having a big market share in Japan.

They are a must in Japan. A link to buy on yahoo japan is not that expensive.

It is a worth investment. Lycos Japan is also good and don't count out ATW.

We get some good traffic of japanese expatriate users from Europe, the US and Asia.

[bill]

Lycos Japan is also good

Keep in mind that Lycos Japan was purchased by Infoseek Japan [webmasterworld.com].

and don't count out ATW

Unfortunately ATW doesn't have a Japanese interface, so the amount of traffic you'll get from there will be limited. They have pretty good Japanese SERPs, but they're not really worth optimizing for as they don't have any local tieups like they used to...

[Adam_C]

Google . . . . 69%
Yahoo! Japan . 68%

I'm looking at the referers to a JP site I work with, and consistently over the last 6 months Yahoo delivers the lions share (about 65% of all SE's) and Google much less (about 18%).

Is this common place? Or do the stats above really tell the true story?

[bill]

Without knowing a whole lot more about your site, market, and SERP placement that would be very hard to say. Some sites do better in different engines. It all depends on your audience and a myriad of other factors. Having more visitors from Yahoo is not bad...maybe your directory listing there is making your listing more prominent in the SERPs. Yahoo Japan is probably within the top 5-10 sites in Japan...Google's strength in Japan is the volume of searches it powers from Yahoo + a large number of portals. The average Japanese searcher is still not savvy enough to go to the Google home page for their searches in most cases.

[globalseo]

A few updates/comments to Bill's chart ...

Goo is still using Inktomi but recently announced it will also use Google's database (Dec 1 I beleive) further expanding Google in Japan.

As far as ATW, a recent conversation with them I learned they they are the backfill listings for Looksmart so they do have a little more reach than we would give them credit for under some circumstances.

I also recently read some stats that Google was now the #1 search engine in Japan slightly moving past Yahoo but I am sure they will change places a few times over the upcoming months.

Either way, sold optimization in Google will get you Yahoo Japan. Buying a directory listing only enhances the opportunity.

[bill]

Goo is still using Inktomi but recently announced it will also use Google's database

Yes, takagi was the first to bring this up in this thread [webmasterworld.com].

As far as ATW, a recent conversation with them I learned they they are the backfill listings for Looksmart...

They are the backfill for what used to be BTLooksmart used in Japan? The part of LookSmart that serves Japanese results was a different company for a while there. I honestly haven't kept up with them recently.

I also recently read some stats that Google was now the #1 search engine in Japan slightly moving past Yahoo

Could you clarify this a bit? Yahoo uses Google results, so there isn't really difference in terms of search engines being used. Are you referring to people using the Google site as opposed to the Yahoo site for search?