Konichiwa, Habr! In the eyes of many people, Japan is a land of tranquility, Zen gardens, serene temples and exquisite tea ceremonies. Both traditional and modern Japanese architecture, books and magazines are the envy of designers around the world. However, for some reason, virtually none of these skills have transferred to digital products, particularly websites, most of which look like they came out circa 1998.
Theories about why this is so are numerous, and today, on the eve of the start of the “Profession of a Web Developer” course, we will try to develop some of the most common theories in this post.
Take a look at the most popular sites in Japan and this is what you can see (see Goo, Rakuten, Yomiuri, NicoNico, OKWave, @cosme, and others):
- Dense, closely packed text.
- Tiny, low quality images.
- More columns than you can count.
- Bright flashing colors and banners.
- An overabundance of outdated technologies such as Flash.
Why is everything exactly like this?
Yahoo Japan
Statistics show that this is the search engine preferred by the majority of Japanese users - about 53%. Essentially, this is just an adapted version of the global search engine. The only significant difference is that several alphabets are used for queries: romaji (writing Japanese words in Latin), as well as Kanji, Hiragana and Katagana characters.
Japanese search engines in Russia
As absurd as it may sound, some users actually try to find something for such a request. In fact, such search engines do not exist, because that’s why they are Japanese, to search for information outside the Russian segment of the Internet.
Among the indigenous population of the Land of the Rising Sun, a very small percentage speaks Russian, at least at an elementary level. The same people who move to Japan sometimes need to find something in their native language because their goal is to fully integrate into the new society. But even if such a need arises, it is enough to change the language in the settings or go to the Russian version of the search engine.
Google Japan
The Japanese Google (search engine) looks the same as the one we are used to, except that all links are written in hieroglyphs. There are no differences in terms of interface and functionality: all basic services are available, including search by images and news. The situation here is the same as in Yahoo: you need to take into account that users publish materials written using different alphabets. However, the Japanese Google (search engine) has one more feature: since the inhabitants of the country love long texts, if you want to watch videos or diagrams, it is better to immediately indicate this.
Japan - Top 10 Best Website Hosting, July 2021
Site Provider | Goods | Profile User rating | Social links | domains | Alexa/communications |
XServer (Osaka) | 4 products for SSL certificates. Platform. Price range JPY 0.00 - JPY 14,000.00. Last updated Nov 22, 2021 Site language: ja-JP | What's Done ✓ Company Address Location Completed ✓ Company Phone/Fax Added ✓ Company Twitter and Facebook Accounts Added ✓ About Page or Contact Page URL Added ✓ Forum, Blog/Ads, Knowledge Base or FAQ URL Added ✓ Products (Plans) ) are added Note. Add a promotion or coupon To Do List ✗ Company descriptions are too short. Minimum 500 characters 86% | 477 510 +1 311 | 1 481 /768 | |
Sakura.ne.jp (Osaka) | 11 products for Shared Hosting, VPS, Domains, Dedicated Hosting. Linux platform. Price range JPY 131.00 - JPY 143,000.00. Last updated Nov 21, 2021 Site language: ja-JP | What's Done ✓ Company descriptions are in order ✓ Company address location is complete ✓ Company Twitter and Facebook accounts are added ✓ About page or "Contact page" URL is added ✓ Forum, blog/announcement, knowledge base or FAQ URL is added ✓ Products (plans) are added . Add a promotion or coupon To-do list ✗ Company phone/fax missing 86% | 1 196 707 +1 308 | 1 541 /87 804 | |
onamae (Tokyo) | 10 products for SSL Certificates, VPS, Email Messages, Shared Hosting. Linux platform. Price range JPY 0.00 - JPY 34,800.00. Last updated Feb 21, 2021 Site language: ja-JP | What's Done ✓ Company Address Location Completed ✓ Company Phone/Fax Added ✓ Company Twitter and Facebook Accounts Added ✓ About Page or Contact Page URL Added ✓ Products (Plans) Added Note. Add a promotion or coupon To Do List ✗ Company descriptions are too short. Minimum 500 characters ✗ No forum, blog/announcements, knowledge base or FAQ 71% | 141 526 +14 667 | 2 026 /1 293 | |
lolipop.jp (Shibuya-ku, Tokyo) | 4 products on Shared Hosting. Linux platform. Price range YEN 100.00 – YEN 2,000.00. Last updated Nov 22, 2021 Site language: ja-JP | What's Done ✓ Company Address Location Completed ✓ Company Phone/Fax Added ✓ Company Twitter and Facebook Accounts Added ✓ About Page or Contact Page URL Added ✓ Forum, Blog/Ads, Knowledge Base or FAQ URL Added ✓ Products (Plans) ) are added Note. Add a promotion or coupon To Do List ✗ Company descriptions are too short. Minimum 500 characters 86% | 300 639 -830 | 4 044 /11 185 | |
conoha.jp (Shibuya-ku, Tokyo) | 7 products on VPS. Linux platform. Price range JPY 900.00 - JPY 49,480.00. Last updated Dec 22, 2021 Site language: en-US ja-JP | What's Done ✓ Company descriptions are in order ✓ Company address location is complete ✓ Added company phone/fax ✓ Added company Twitter and Facebook accounts ✓ Added “About Page” or “Contact Page” URL ✓ Added Forum, Blog/Ads, Knowledge Base or FAQ ✓ Products (plans) are being added Note. Add a promotion or coupon 100% Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 1 / 10 Good reviews : 0 Bad reviews : 1 Official responses: 0 | 4 287 +98 | 8 115 /118 | |
mixhost.jp (Osaka) | 4 products on Shared Hosting. Linux platform. Price range JPY 880.00 - JPY 7,180.00. Last updated Dec 24, 2021 Site language: ja-JP | What's Done ✓ Company Address Location is filled in ✓ Company Twitter and Facebook accounts are added ✓ About Page or Contact Page URL is added ✓ Products (Plans) are added Note. Add a promotion or coupon To Do List ✗ Company descriptions are too short. Minimum 500 characters ✗ No company phone/fax ✗ forum, blog/announcements, knowledge base or FAQ 57% | 12 615 /48 | ||
Heteml.jp (Tokyo) | 6 products for SSL certificates, Shared hosting. Linux platform. Price range JPY 0.00 - JPY 128,000.00. Last updated Nov 22, 2021 Site language: ja-JP | What has been done ✓ Note: the company description is short. Recommended 1000 characters ✓ Company address location complete ✓ Added company phone/fax ✓ Added company Twitter and Facebook accounts ✓ Added “About Page” or “Contact Page” URL ✓ Added Forum, Blog/Ads, Knowledge Base or FAQ URLs ✓ Products ( plans) are added Note. Add a promotion or coupon 100% | 86 441 +75 | 18 376 /6 159 | |
Xrea (Osaka) | 3 products for Shared Hosting, Email Messages. Linux platform. Price range JPY 0.00 – JPY 191.00. Last updated Dec 22, 2021 Site language: ja-JP | What's Done ✓ Company descriptions are in order ✓ Company address location is complete ✓ Company Twitter and Facebook accounts are added ✓ “About Page” or “Contact Page” URL is added ✓ Products (Plans) are added Note. Add a promotion or coupon To-do list ✗ Company phone/fax missing ✗ Forum, blog/announcements, knowledge base or FAQ missing 71% | 19 034 /25 752 | ||
kagoya.jp (Kyoto) | 12 products on VPS, Shared Hosting, Dedicated Hosting. Platform Linux, Windows. Price range JPY 660.00 - JPY 35,200.00. Last updated Dec 28, 2021 Site language: ja-JP | What's Done ✓ Company Address Location Completed ✓ Company Phone/Fax Added ✓ Company Twitter and Facebook Accounts Added ✓ About Page or Contact Page URL Added ✓ Products (Plans) Added Note. Add a promotion or coupon To Do List ✗ Company descriptions are too short. Minimum 500 characters ✗ No forum, blog/announcements, knowledge base or FAQ 71% | 29 012 +75 | 22 799 /251 | |
wpx.ne.jp (Osaka) | 4 products per cloud, Domains. Linux platform. Price range JPY 1,200.00 – JPY 80,000.00. Last updated Dec 28, 2019 Site language: ja-JP | What's Done ✓ Company Address Location Completed ✓ Company Phone/Fax Added ✓ Company Twitter and Facebook Accounts Added ✓ About Page or Contact Page URL Added ✓ Products (Plans) Added Note. Add a promotion or coupon To Do List ✗ Company descriptions are too short. Minimum 500 characters ✗ No forum, blog/announcements, knowledge base or FAQ 71% | 18 349 +59 | 29 994 /56 |
Map location of the current best hosting companies in Japan | Compare the best hosting companies in JPWant to see information from the best reliable companies? - against - Sakura.ne.jp - against - onamae |
List of available plans from the best hosting provider in each category. They mainly offer competitive low-cost services and cheap prices for servers (sometimes including free plans/free domain registration) and SSD/SAS hard drives. If you are looking for WordPress/Drupal/Joomla/ Magento / Wiki / PhpBB / TYPO3
powerful applications (run by a business or enterprise), you will have to manually check the plans of the best web hosting companies. Some of them may have their own data center services (using renewable energy, running on green energy) by renting racks , are ICANN or the official domain registrars for a specific country extension.
like .JP
.
Shared Hosting Japan
plan name | brand | Platform | disk space | transfer | price | hosted sites / free domains / IP's | date plan |
Economy | star.ne.jp | Linux | 10 GB | unmeasured | JPY 126.00/Month VAT VAT | 20 / 0 / 0 | May 18, 2020 |
RS Plan | onamae.com | Linux | 250 MB SSD | 4 500 GB | JPY 900.00/Month | unlimited | Feb 21, 2020 |
SV-Basic | cpi.ad.jp | Linux | unlimited | unmeasured | JPY 45,600.00 VAT VAT | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Jan 17, 2020 |
S12 | kagoya.jp | Linux/Windows | 100 GB | unmeasured | JPY 1,100.00/Month VAT incl. | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Dec 28, 2019 |
WordPress Standard | mixhost.jp | Linux | 250 GB SSD | 3 000 GB | JPY 880.00/Month | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Dec 24, 2019 |
CORE-MINI | coreserver.jp | Linux | 60 GB SSD | unmeasured | JPY 198.00/Month | 50 / 0 / 0 | Dec 22, 2019 |
XREA Free (free plan) | xrea.com | Linux | 1 GB | 1 GB | JPY 0.00/Month | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Dec 22, 2019 |
basic | heteml.jp | Linux | 200 GB SSD | 80 GB | JPY 800.00/Month | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Nov 22, 2019 |
Economy | lolipop.jp | Linux | 10 GB | 40 GB | YEN 100.00/Month | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Nov 22, 2019 |
light | sakura.ne.jp | Linux | 10 GB | unmeasured | JPY 131.00/Month VAT VAT | 20 / 0 / 0 | Nov 21, 2019 |
More products in our Shared Hosting directory in Japan
Dedicated Hosting Japan
plan name | brand | Platform | disk space | transfer | Memory | price | hosted sites / free domains / IP's | date plan |
Plan 1 | wadax.ne.jp | Linux | 4000 GB | unmeasured | 16000 MB | JPY 31,423.00/Month VAT included Set up fee JPY 88000 | unlimited / 0 / 1 | Jan 25, 2021 |
My server 1000 | gonbei.jp | Linux | 10 GB | unmeasured | 8000 MB | JPY 1,100.00/Month | unlimited / 0 / 1 | Jan 25, 2021 |
CHM-11Z | cpi.ad.jp | Linux | 240 GB SSD | unmeasured | 16000 MB | JPY 27,000.00/year VAT VAT | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Jan 17, 2020 |
IC-1 | idcf.jp | Linux | 100 GB SSD | 2 000 GB | 2000 MB | JPY 3,800.00/Month | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Jan 17, 2020 |
Xeon 6 | sixcore.ne.jp | Linux | 1000 GB | unmeasured | 24000 MB | JPY 30,000.00/Month | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Jan 15, 2020 |
044 Quad | kagoya.jp | Linux/Windows | 2000 GB | unmeasured | 16000 MB | JPY 11,000.00/Month VAT included Set up fee JPY 44000 | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Dec 28, 2019 |
Xeon 4 core 3.4GHz | sakura.ne.jp | Linux | unlimited | unmeasured | 8000 MB | JPY 88,000.00/Month VAT VAT | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Nov 21, 2019 |
BASIC | speever.jp | Linux | 800 GB | unmeasured | 16000 MB | $177.31/Month | unlimited | Dec 1, 2018 |
Essential | ntt.com | Linux/Windows | 1000 GB | unmeasured | 32000 MB | $0.00/Month | unlimited | Dec 1, 2017 |
gmocloud.com | Windows | 500 GB | unmeasured | 16000 MB | $180.00/Month | unlimited | Dec 1, 2017 |
More products in our Dedicated Hosting catalog in Japan
Colocation Hosting Japan
plan name | brand | transfer | price | hosted sites / free domains / IP's | date plan |
1/4U server | atworks.co.jp | unmeasured | on request | / 0 | Jan 25, 2021 |
More products in our Colocation Hosting catalog in Japan
Reseller Hosting Japan
plan name | brand | Platform | disk space | transfer | price | hosted sites / free domains / IP's | date plan |
JP-CPR-1 | jpstream.net | Linux | 40 GB | 800 GB | $8.69/Month | unlimited | Dec 1, 2018 |
More products in our Reseller Hosting directory in Japan
VPS Japan
plan name | brand | Platform | disk space | transfer | Memory | price | hosted sites / free domains / IP's | date plan |
512 Mb | tsukaeru.net | Linux/Windows | 20 GB SSD | unmeasured | 512 MB | JPY 539.00/Month Set up JPY 1000 fee | unlimited / 0 / 1 | Jan 25, 2021 |
VPS-1G | rapidsite.jp | Linux/Windows | 150 GB | unmeasured | 1000 MB | JPY 2,700.00/Month VAT VAT Set up fee JPY 10000 | unlimited / 0 / 1 | Jan 25, 2021 |
future.ad.jp | Linux | 100 GB SAS | unmeasured | 2000 MB | JPY 20,000.00/Month | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Jan 24, 2021 | |
1GB | onamae-server.com | Linux | unlimited | unmeasured | 1000 MB | JPY 0.00/Month (JPY 896 after 1 month) | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Jan 17, 2020 |
Petit plan | dream.jp | Linux | 5 GB | unmeasured | 256 MB | JPY 350.00/Month | unlimited / 0 / 1 | Dec 30, 2019 |
KVM 1 Core | kagoya.jp | Linux | 20 GB SSD | unmeasured | 1000 MB | JPY 660.00/Month VAT incl. | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Dec 28, 2019 |
1GB | conoha.jp | Linux | 50 GB SSD | unmeasured | 1000 MB | JPY 900.00/Month VAT VAT | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Dec 22, 2019 |
512 MB | sakura.ne.jp | Linux | 25 GB SSD | unmeasured | 512 MB | JPY 585.00/Month VAT VAT | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Nov 21, 2019 |
1GB plan | onamae.com | Linux | 1000 GB | unmeasured | 1000 MB | JPY 0.00/Month VAT VAT (JPY 896 after first term) | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Nov 21, 2019 |
ADVANCED | speever.jp | Linux | 200 GB | unmeasured | 8000 MB | $79.79/Month | unlimited | Dec 1, 2018 |
More products in our VPS catalog in Japan
Cloud Japan
plan name | brand | Platform | disk space | transfer | Memory | price | hosted sites / free domains / IP's | date plan |
wadax.ne.jp | Windows | 1000 GB | unmeasured | 32000 MB | JPY 180,400.00/Month VAT included Set up fee JPY 165000 | unlimited / 0 / 1 | Jan 25, 2021 | |
Cloud | iij.ad.jp | Linux | unlimited | unmeasured | on request | unlimited / 0 / 0 | May 20, 2020 | |
wpx.ne.jp | Linux | unlimited | unmeasured | JPY 1,200.00/Month VAT VAT | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Dec 28, 2019 | ||
X-Small | gmocloud.com | Linux | 20 GB | unmeasured | 2000 MB | $35.65/Month | unlimited | Dec 1, 2017 |
More products in our Cloud catalog in Japan
Japan domains
plan name | brand | price | date plan |
.com | wadax.ne.jp | JPY 1,650.00/year VAT incl. | Jan 25, 2021 |
.com | gonbei.jp | JPY 1,408.00/year | Jan 25, 2021 |
.com | tsukaeru.net | JPY 1,410.00/year | Jan 25, 2021 |
.com | drive.ne.jp | JPY 1,650.00/year | Jan 25, 2021 |
.com | onamae-server.com | JPY 0.00/year | Jan 17, 2020 |
.com | idcf.jp | JPY 1,900.00/year | Jan 17, 2020 |
.com | cpi.ad.jp | JPY 6,000.00/year VAT VAT | Jan 17, 2020 |
.com | wpx.ne.jp | JPY 1,500.00/year | Dec 28, 2019 |
.com | coreserver.jp | JPY 899.00/year | Dec 22, 2019 |
.com | sakura.ne.jp | JPY 1,886.00/year VAT VAT | Nov 21, 2019 |
More products in our Domains catalog in Japan
SSL certificates Japan
plan name | brand | price | hosted sites / free domains / IP's | date plan |
Domain authentication type (DV authentication) | gonbei.jp | JPY 4,400.00/year | 1 | Jan 25, 2021 |
Essential SSL | tsukaeru.net | JPY 5,000.00/year | 1 | Jan 25, 2021 |
CoreSSL | sslbox.jp | JPY 1,500.00/year VAT VAT | 1 | Jan 25, 2021 |
Free proprietary SSL | star.ne.jp | JPY 0.00/year | 1 | May 18, 2020 |
Free SSL | onamae-server.com | JPY 0.00/Month | 1 | Jan 17, 2020 |
GeoTrust Qucik SSL Premium | idcf.jp | JPY 13,900.00/year | 1 | Jan 17, 2020 |
Let's Encrypt | coreserver.jp | JPY 0.00/year | 1 | Dec 22, 2019 |
Let's Encrypt | xserver.ne.jp | JPY 0.00/year | 1 | Nov 22, 2019 |
Let's Encrypt | heteml.jp | JPY 0.00/year | 1 | Nov 22, 2019 |
Name.com provided SSL certificate | onamae.com | JPY 24,000.00/year VAT VAT | 1 | Nov 21, 2019 |
More products in our SSL Certificates catalog in Japan
website builder japan
plan name | brand | disk space | transfer | price | date plan |
Business Plan | jpstream.net | 5 GB | unmeasured | $7.89/Month | Dec 1, 2018 |
More products in our Website Builder catalog in Japan
email Japan
plan name | brand | Platform | disk space | transfer | price | date plan |
Email-only plan | future.ad.jp | Linux/Windows | 100 GB | unmeasured | JPY 1,000.00/Month VAT incl. | Jan 24, 2021 |
Email/Web | iij.ad.jp | Linux | unlimited | unmeasured | on request | May 20, 2020 |
Mail & Backup | xrea.com | Linux | 100 GB | unmeasured | JPY 79.00/Month | Dec 22, 2019 |
MM1000 plan | onamae.com | Linux | unlimited | unmeasured | JPY 790.00/year VAT VAT | Nov 21, 2019 |
More products in our catalog Emails to Japan
CDN Japan
plan name | brand | transfer | price | hosted sites / free domains / IP's | date plan |
Business Bronze | amimoto-ami.com | 1 000 GB | $600.00/Month | 10 | Dec 1, 2018 |
More products in our CDN catalog in Japan
Free Web Hosting Japannew
plan name | brand | Platform | disk space | transfer | price | hosted sites / free domains / IP's | date plan |
XREA Free (free plan) | xrea.com | Linux | 1 GB | 1 GB | JPY 0.00/Month | unlimited / 0 / 0 | Dec 22, 2019 |
Goo
But here's something more interesting. This service is worth paying attention to those who are looking for native Japanese search engines. Goo is ideal for searching information resources, blogs and portals. Like Yandex, the home page has several sections: news, weather, discounts in stores, popular blog posts, sports results, mail, and even recommended vacancies.
Infoseek Japan
Now Infoseek is practically not used anywhere except Australia, Poland and Japan itself. This service is much more complex than other Japanese search engines - it can act as a personal informant, notifying you about news on selected topics. The menu has a Smart Info item - it contains links to useful reference resources (dictionaries, business directories, phone books, etc.). Infoseek has a few more tricks. The first is a large multimedia catalog designed to search for pictures and audio recordings. The second is the Sites by Subject section, where you can view popular sites from 16 different categories.
Cultural differences
Risk Avoidance – Japanese culture generally discourages taking risks or standing out from the crowd. Once a precedent is set for the behavior or appearance of something, everyone follows it, regardless of whether there is a better solution. Even Japanese subcultures follow their own fashions and rules.
Consumer Behavior - The Japanese demand high guarantees, this requirement is met through long descriptions and technical specifications. When making a purchasing decision, they don't hesitate before a catchy headline or a beautiful picture. The proverb “less is more” doesn’t quite apply here.
- Instead of viewing the Internet as a tool for inclusion, Japanese companies often look at the Internet as just another advertising platform to get the word out about a product as loudly as possible. Websites are ultimately the maximum concentration of information in the smallest space, akin to a brochure, rather than an interactive tool.
Urban landscape - Take a walk through one of Tokyo's downtown areas, such as Shibuya, and you'll be constantly bombarded with bright neon advertising, noisy pachinko parlors (arcade game parlors), crowds of rowdy mercenaries or schoolchildren. The same chaotic efficiency of the streets seems to have carried over to the web. Additionally, since physical space is expensive in Japan, it is not wasted, and the same goes for white space on a web page.
Web Jobs - Look at any job site in Japan and you'll still see advertisements for roles such as "web master" and "web administrator", dating back to the days when a company would hire a single IT guy to write code by hand and launch the entire website - many people still do this. On the other hand, creative people want creative freedom, which they are unlikely to find in a large Japanese corporation, so they go elsewhere.
Biglobe
At Biglobe, the emphasis is on finding relevant news. Right on the start page there is a calendar for the current month with information about past and upcoming events. And in a separate block you can see a list of the hottest requests for today. The wide settings for search parameters are also impressive: we can say that Biglobe is the only Japanese search engine in Russian. You can clearly define the search area by indicating the desired domain zones, language, and publication period of the materials.
What you shouldn't expect from the Japanese segment of the network
Firstly, Japanese search engines are not designed to search for pirated content. More precisely, in the Land of the Rising Sun such a concept is not widespread, just like torrents. Therefore, if some paid content was not found free for download on the RuNet, it is useless to search for it on the Japanese network.
Secondly, you won’t be able to watch materials banned in Russia either, and the tightened legislation is not in favor of this option. But, most likely, the content will be blocked by the provider itself unless the user uses various tricks. Unless, unlike the Russian one, the Japanese search engine will still find these materials and display a list of sites on the page, but it will hardly be possible to visit them.
And thirdly, in order to search for something in this segment of the Internet, it is advisable to know the language of the Land of the Rising Sun at a decent level. No translator can help you accurately reproduce a complex phrase, and given the huge number of meanings of the same word, you may find something completely different from what the user himself wanted. If you wish, of course, you should try to enter a query in English, but even this way you won’t be able to find everything.
Thus, Japanese search engines are only suitable for finding certain information. With their help, you can order something from a site that is not relevant for the Russian-speaking segment, see a few more famous television shows and other funny video content. And of course, read news from primary sources, learn about the history of the country, or simply surf sites to satisfy your interest.
Source
Excite
As you have already noticed, Japanese search engines almost always have additional functions not directly related to search. The Excite service is no exception. So, the Excite Pal service is very interesting - a real-time communication system. In addition, the search engine has a very powerful directory of sites containing more than 80,000 hand-selected links with short comments. According to some experts, Excite provides the most relevant results of all foreign search engines.