Google became No.2 sites for the first time in Japan

It’s a well known fact that Yahoo Japan has been the most visited site in Japan for years, which is still the case, but we may see Google stealing the position in near future as Google became No. 2 most visited site for the first time in late 2007.

According to Nielsen Japan’s report, Google ranked at #14 back in December 2005. It is a rare case for a site to improve the ranking in such a short period of time. Considering that the ranking is based on the number of access to the site property*, Google’s YouTube purchase must be one of the biggest contributions to increase in popularity. (*Both Yahoo Japan and Google Japan have never disclosed the number of search volume in past.)

While Yahoo Japan is still the most popular site in Japan, they’ve only gained about 8.4 mil accesses/month since December 2005, compared to Google’s 14.6 mil gain during the same period of time.

As Google becoming more popular, the online marketing and advertising cost needs to be monitored closely in 2008, and the budget allocation should be reviewed and updated accordingly.