“.jp” domain debuted in February 2001. With more than 500,000 domain registered, now there are more “xxx.jp” registered than other form of JP domains such as “xxx.co.jp” and “xxx.ne.jp”.
The total number of registered JP domain is 866.495 (as of Nov. 1, 2006)
Unlike “xxx.co.jp” domain, any one can obtain “xxx.jp” domain name from any where in the world, which is probably the reason for it to gain the popularity.
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Motoko Hunt
President & Search Marketing Strategist at AJPR
Motoko Hunt manages the SEO for all of Adobe's properties in Japan and the
APAC region. Prior to joining Adobe, Motoko established AJPR in 1998; she
has been providing search marketing consulting services targeting Japan and
Asia to companies around the world. Her services have made a big impact on
the search marketing campaigns of some of the world's most popular
multi-national brands. A number of her articles have been published on industry
websites and printed media including MultiLingual Computing and the International
Journal of Localisation. She also writes about the Japanese online market on her
blog at AJPR and contributes to several online magazines in Japan and Asia.
She served as a member of the board of directors of SEMPO in 2010-2012, and
is a chairperson of the SEMPO Asia-Pacific Committee.
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Hi David,
Right now, Yahoo Japan and Google Japan only look for the language issue, and the hosting location doesn’t make any differences to the rankings in the search results. Unlike UK and some European languages, they only give you 2 choices, “all the web” or “Japanese language sites”.
Seems like that makes more sense to have the TLD .jp for practical purposes. Even though you can host a .jp address anywhere doesn’t it make sense from a search standpoint to host in Japan or does it make a difference?