Search Engine Share in Japan

Japanese Search Engines and Their Popularity

Search engines are an integral part of the internet. They allow users to find content that they would not otherwise have access to. All search engines work in a similar manner: by taking user queries and crawling the internet for websites that contain relevant results. The better the algorithm behind the search engine, the better the search results it provides. A search engine that produces more accurate, relevant results is more valuable to users than a search engine that returns only tangentially related results.

Google's Worldwide Popularity

When many people think of search engines, Google immediately comes to mind. Google is the largest, most popular search engine in the world, with more than 72% of the world's search engine market share. The phrase "To Google something" is ubiquitous and synonymous with the action of performing an internet search.

Yahoo's Japanese Popularity

Although Google is the largest and most popular search engine in the world, different countries prefer different search engines. Until it was recently eclipsed by Google, Yahoo was the preferred search engine for people in Japan. Despite no longer being number one, it is still popular with Japanese users, especially those new to using the internet.

Yahoo Japan is fully independent from Yahoo US. In the US market, Yahoo has been losing popularity, market share, and users with every passing year. In Japan, however, Yahoo still has regular users who use it instead of Google. Why is this? Well, Yahoo Japan is the complete package: a search engine, source of news, email client, and more. No other Japanese website offered such a complete experience – that is, until Google came along. With Gmail and YouTube at its disposal, Google was uniquely positioned to unseat Yahoo as Japan's number one search engine.

In 2010, Yahoo Japan adopted Google’s engine, so that when a search is done through Yahoo, it returns the search results from Google, while adding its own algorithms to it. Thus, the users using Yahoo receive almost the same results that they would if they went directly through Google.

Native Japanese Search Engines

Together, Google and Yahoo Japan control 90% of the Japanese search engine market – formidable competition for smaller search engines to take on. While native Japanese search engines can't compete with the global dominance of Google and Yahoo, there are still a number of them available. Many were formed in the early days of the internet and have since integrated Google's search engine algorithm to their own, or have pivoted to other services.

Established in 1997, Goo was Japan's first search engine. Today, it no longer uses its own search engine, relying instead on one powered by Google. However, a handful of its own services are still popular in Japan. Oshiete Goo, a community-driven question-and-answer platform, has had more than seven million questions answered to date.

Livedoor, another unique Japanese search engine established in the early days of the internet, lost much of its market share and saw stock prices plummet amid scandals that took place in the mid-2000s. Today, it still exists, but is not popular and is rarely used compared to the search engine giants of today.

Infoseek was similarly founded in 1998 as a search engine. It was purchased by Rakuten in 2000, and after facing a decline in popularity, it adopted Google Japan as its search engine in 2010.. Infoseek offers a variety of services such as shopping, travel booking, auction services, and more.

Other Search Engines

A number of other search engines are also used in Japan, but they have small reach compared to Yahoo Japan and Google.

MSN Japan, with its associated search engine Bing, is relatively popular as a portal site to the rest of the internet. Its associatedOutlook messaging services are commonly used, though Bing’s search engine is not nearly as popular as its competitors.