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Coaley Peak GEO Research Centre Engine guide

Yahoo! JAPAN ヤフー How Japan's Yahoo! answers with AI on top of Google's results, and how to be found.

Yahoo! JAPAN is Japan's own Yahoo!, run by LY Corporation and separate from the American company. Its web results have come from Google's search engine since 2010, its AI answers run on Google Cloud and OpenAI models, and its new Agent i assistant reaches LINE's users. This guide covers its timeline, the four layers behind its answers, its crawlers and what a brand can control.

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Independent guide: Coaley Peak is not associated with LY Corporation. Trademarks

Owner
LY Corporation
Launched
April 1996; AI answers October 2024; Agent i April 2026
Home market
Japan; blocked from the UK and EEA since 2022
Languages
Japanese
Open weights
No: its AI runs on Google Cloud's Vertex AI and OpenAI
Crawlers
Googlebot supplies its web results; LINE's Linespider

Overview

What Yahoo! JAPAN is, and who uses it

Yahoo Japan Corporation was set up in January 1996 and launched the Japanese Yahoo! JAPAN search service that April. In July 2010 it decided to adopt Google's search engine and search-ad system, so its web results have come from Google's crawl and index ever since, with Yahoo! JAPAN's own services, such as maps, reviews, Yahoo! News and the Q&A site Yahoo! Chiebukuro, filling much of the page.

The company is no longer a licensee. In September 2021 it bought the Japanese Yahoo! and Yahoo! JAPAN trademarks outright, ending its licence from the US company, and in October 2023 it merged with LINE's business to form LY Corporation. Since April 2022 Yahoo! JAPAN has been unavailable from the UK and the European Economic Area, so a UK team cannot check its results directly.

Its AI arrived in stages: AI answers were tested from October 2023 and launched on smartphone search in October 2024 and on PC in August 2025, running on Google Cloud's Vertex AI. In April 2026 LY merged its AI Assistant with LINE AI to create Agent i, which runs on OpenAI's models and, since August 2026, carries shopping ads matched to the conversation.

LY's latest annual report says generative AI is reducing demand for internet search: Yahoo! JAPAN's daily unique browsers fell to 107 million in the year to March 2026. StatCounter gave Yahoo! 7.61% of Japanese searches in September 2026, behind Google and Bing, but LINE's in-app web search has gone to Yahoo! since 2023, which StatCounter may understate.

Timeline

Yahoo! JAPAN, from launch to today

  1. Yahoo Japan Corporation is established to provide internet search in Japan.

  2. The Japanese-language Yahoo! JAPAN search service launches.

  3. Yahoo! Chiebukuro, Yahoo! JAPAN's question-and-answer service, launches.

  4. Yahoo! JAPAN decides to adopt Google's search engine and search-ad system, supplying data to Google in return.

  5. Yahoo Japan buys the Japanese Yahoo! and Yahoo! JAPAN trademark rights for ¥178.5 billion, ending its licence agreement.

  6. Yahoo! JAPAN services stop being available from the EEA and the UK.

  7. LINE's in-app web search switches to Yahoo! Search.

  8. LY Corporation is formed by merging Z Holdings, Yahoo Japan and others, taking over LINE's business.

  9. Generative AI answers in Yahoo! Search begin testing with some users.

  10. Yahoo! Chiebukuro trials AI answers using OpenAI's models.

  11. AI answers and chat follow-ups launch in smartphone Yahoo! Search, using Google Cloud's Vertex AI.

  12. AI Assistant and AI answers launch in PC Yahoo! Search.

  13. LY launches Agent i, merging Yahoo! JAPAN's AI Assistant and LINE AI.

  14. Shopping ads matched to Agent i conversations are expanded, and advertiser billing begins.

Things to know

Things to know about Yahoo! JAPAN

  1. Yahoo! JAPAN's web results come from Google's search engine under its 2010 arrangement, so ranking there is in practice Google SEO, with Googlebot and Google Search Console.

  2. LY documents no webmaster console, sitemap tool or current crawler for Yahoo! JAPAN Search; its site-owner guidance dates from 2010.

  3. Yahoo! JAPAN has been unavailable from the UK and EEA since April 2022, and LY's terms forbid using its AI features from there. Checking results needs a connection or a partner in Japan.

  4. AI answers mainly appear for how-to, 'what is', seasonal, event and numerical questions.

  5. LY's own properties feed many AI features: Yahoo! Map reviews, Yahoo! Chiebukuro answers, Yahoo! News comments, and partner data such as carview! and mybest.

  6. Restaurant review summaries are written with OpenAI's models from Yahoo! Map reviews posted within about a year, so recent review volume matters.

  7. There is no publisher opt-out from Yahoo! JAPAN's AI features. Google-level controls such as noindex and nosnippet also remove or limit you in Google.

  8. Agent i runs on OpenAI's models and carries shopping ads matched to the conversation; Yahoo! Ads shopping campaigns may appear there but cannot target it directly.

  9. LINE's in-app web search goes to Yahoo! Search, and LY says LINE reaches 81.3% of Japan's population each month.

  10. LY bought the Japanese Yahoo! trademarks in 2021, so Yahoo! JAPAN is no longer a licensee of the US Yahoo: the two are separate companies.

The four layers

How Yahoo! JAPAN builds an answer

Every AI answer is made in four layers: what the model learned in pre-training, how it was tuned, what it retrieves live, and how it puts the answer together. Here is each one for Yahoo! JAPAN, and what it means for a brand that wants to be cited.

  1. Layer 1

    Pre-training: the base (foundation) model

    LY uses other companies' foundation models for these features and publishes no model of its own behind them. It says AI answers in Yahoo! Search use Google Cloud's Vertex AI, and that its AI Assistant used Vertex AI and OpenAI's API. Agent i, restaurant review summaries and Yahoo! Chiebukuro's AI answers use OpenAI's models, and Chiebukuro added Anthropic's Claude in May 2024. Model versions, training data and cut-offs are not published. LY says text users enter is sent to Google or OpenAI only to provide the feature.

    What it means for you: What these models know about your brand comes from Google's and OpenAI's training, not LY's. Work on your visibility in Gemini and ChatGPT, particularly in Japanese, carries over to Yahoo! JAPAN's AI.

  2. Layer 2

    Post-training: tuning and alignment

    Not published. LY publishes usage guidelines and disclaimers instead: no guarantee of accuracy, no use in place of medical, legal or financial advice, no use to train other AI, and no use by under-13s. It says Agent i's shopping and outing suggestions are not designed to favour particular makers, shops or venues.

    What it means for you: With tuning in Google's and OpenAI's hands, LY's own lever is the data it supplies. For brands, that makes LY's platforms, from Yahoo! Map to Chiebukuro, the part of the system most worth influencing.

  3. Layer 3

    Retrieval: live search

    Ordinary web results come from Google's search engine: when the deal was announced in 2010, Yahoo! JAPAN said Google would supply a third to a half of the results page, with its own services filling the rest. LY does not say which index grounds its AI answers. Its own data feeds many AI features: Yahoo! Map reviews, past Chiebukuro best answers, Yahoo! News comments and expert contributors, carview! and mybest content in Agent i, and, as planned, LINE Official Account information.

    What it means for you: Two routes matter: Google's index, for the web, and LY's own properties. A Japanese website that ranks in Google, plus accurate Yahoo! Map listings, good reviews and helpful Chiebukuro answers, covers both.

  4. Layer 4

    The answer: what people read

    AI answers appear in results for how-to and definition questions and, since February 2025, seasonal, event and numerical questions, with a link to ask a follow-up in chat, now part of Agent i. Review summaries show up to three AI-extracted topics, each with matching real reviews. Agent i replies in conversation with product, place and other modules, and since August 2026 can carry shopping ads. Whether AI answers cite web sources is not published.

    What it means for you: Without documented citations, being named correctly is the goal, and in Agent i, being one of the products or places it suggests. Accurate product data and listings on LY's platforms matter as much as your own pages.

Crawlers

Yahoo! JAPAN's crawlers and user agents

The user-agent tokens to look for in your server logs and to name in robots.txt.

Crawlers and fetchers associated with Yahoo! JAPAN, with what each does and how it treats robots.txt
User-agent tokenWhat it doesrobots.txt
Googlebot
Documentation		Google's main search crawler, documented by Google, not LY. Yahoo! JAPAN's web results have come from Google's search engine since 2010, so pages reach Yahoo! JAPAN through Google's crawl and index.Follows robots.txt, Google says, so rules for Googlebot also shape Yahoo! JAPAN's web results.
Linespider
Documentation		LINE's crawler, now part of LY, which provides search results inside LINE's services. User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Linespider/1.1; +https://lin.ee/4dwXkTH).Follows robots.txt, LINE says.
Not published
Documentation		Yahoo! JAPAN's own crawler. LY's site-owner pages, last updated in 2010, describe a crawler that follows robots.txt and meta tags, but name no current user agent or robots.txt token.Follows robots.txt, according to the 2010 guidance.

Historic 'Y!J' user agents appear in third-party bot directories, but LY documents none of them today, so we have left them out.

Crawl sources

Where Yahoo! JAPAN crawls from, and how to verify it

LY publishes no IP list, reverse DNS pattern or network for any Yahoo! JAPAN or LINE crawler. Its site-owner pages recommend DNS-based checks, looking up the IP and then the hostname it returns, rather than blocking by IP.

For the web results themselves, the crawler that matters is Googlebot. Google publishes its IP ranges and a reverse DNS verification method: genuine hostnames end in googlebot.com and resolve back to the same IP.

Opting out

How to opt out of Yahoo! JAPAN, or limit what it uses

  1. Control Googlebot

    Because Yahoo! JAPAN's web results come from Google's engine, Googlebot rules in robots.txt and noindex affect your presence in Yahoo! JAPAN as well as in Google. LY does not document this as an opt-out; it follows from the 2010 arrangement.

    Official page

  2. Use Yahoo! JAPAN's meta directives

    LY's site-owner pages document noindex, nofollow, noarchive for cached copies and nosnippet, as meta tags or X-Robots-Tag headers. They date from 2010.

    Official page

  3. Limit LINE's crawler

    Add a User-agent: Linespider group to robots.txt to limit LINE's crawler.

    Official page

  4. There is no opt-out from AI answers or Agent i

    LY documents no publisher opt-out from its AI answers or Agent i. Google-Extended controls Gemini training and grounding, but LY does not say whether its Vertex AI features use that grounding, so its effect on Yahoo! JAPAN is unknown.

    Official page

  5. Remove a page

    LY's guidance is to put the page behind a login, block it in robots.txt or add noindex; deleted pages drop out when the index next updates.

    Official page

  6. Privacy removal requests

    Since 2015 Yahoo! JAPAN has published a policy on hiding results that infringe privacy, weighing privacy against the public interest. Requests go through the Yahoo! Search help centre.

    Official page

  7. Feedback on AI answers

    LY's generative AI guidelines point users to an enquiry form. There is no published correction process for AI answers.

    Official page

Yahoo! JAPAN's controls are mostly Google's controls, so anything that removes you from Yahoo! JAPAN also removes you from Google. There is no documented way to stay in its results while opting out of its AI answers, and nothing published about how those answers choose their sources.

How we help

How we get brands cited in Yahoo! JAPAN

The Coaley Peak GEO Research Centre researches and implements GEO for SEO agencies and in-house teams, with foreign markets as our speciality.

  1. Japan visibility audit, run from Japan

    Yahoo! JAPAN is blocked from the UK, so we test from Japan: we record its AI answers and Agent i's responses to your customers' questions, and where you appear.

  2. Google SEO in Japanese

    Because Yahoo! JAPAN's web results come from Google, we build your Japanese visibility in Google, with native Japanese writers and proper localisation rather than translation.

  3. LY platform presence

    We help you get your Yahoo! Map listings, reviews and Chiebukuro presence right: the data LY's AI features draw on directly.

  4. Agent i and shopping

    Agent i suggests products and carries shopping ads. We make sure your product data and Yahoo! Ads shopping campaigns are accurate and complete.

  5. Measurement across Japan

    We track your presence in Yahoo! JAPAN's AI answers and Agent i alongside Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT in Japan.

More on our research, services and team at the Coaley Peak GEO Research Centre.

FAQ

Yahoo! JAPAN GEO: questions

  • Does Yahoo! JAPAN use Google?

    Yes, for its web results. In July 2010 Yahoo! JAPAN decided to adopt Google's search engine and search-ad system, so its web results come from Google's crawl and index, with its own services, such as maps, news and Yahoo! Chiebukuro, filling much of the page.

  • What models power Yahoo! JAPAN's AI answers?

    LY says its AI answers in search use Google Cloud's Vertex AI, while Agent i, review summaries and Yahoo! Chiebukuro's AI answers use OpenAI's models. LY publishes no model of its own behind them.

  • Can I see Yahoo! JAPAN from the UK?

    No. Yahoo! JAPAN has been unavailable from the UK and the European Economic Area since April 2022, and LY's terms forbid using its AI features from there. Checks need a connection or a partner in Japan.

  • Does Yahoo! JAPAN have its own crawler?

    LY documents no current one. Its web results come through Googlebot, and LINE's Linespider is the only LY crawler with a published user agent.

  • What is Agent i?

    LY's AI agent, launched in April 2026 by merging Yahoo! JAPAN's AI Assistant with LINE AI. It runs on OpenAI's models, opens from LINE and from Yahoo! JAPAN search, and since August 2026 can show shopping ads matched to the conversation.

  • Is Yahoo! JAPAN the same company as Yahoo?

    No. Yahoo! JAPAN is run by LY Corporation, which bought the Japanese Yahoo! and Yahoo! JAPAN trademarks in 2021. Outside Japan, the Yahoo! brand belongs to Yahoo Inc., a separate US company.

Want a free chat about Yahoo! JAPAN?

Tell us which market and brand you are working on. If we can help, we will set up a free, no-obligation chat with Stephen or Ethan.

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More engine guides

Related engines

Independence and trademarks. Yahoo! and Yahoo! JAPAN are trademarks of LY Corporation in Japan, which bought the Japanese rights in 2021; outside Japan, Yahoo! is a trademark of Yahoo Inc., a separate company. LINE is a trademark of LY Corporation. Other names are trademarks of their respective owners. Coaley Peak is independent: we are not associated with, endorsed by or a partner of LY Corporation. This guide is our own research from public documentation and reputable reporting, checked in October 2026.

Reviewed by Stephen Grindley, research centre lead. Last checked .

Document reference: ISO_webpage_geo_engine_yahoo_japan_v1

Last modified: 7 October 2026

GEO Research Centre·Engine guides·Yahoo! JAPAN