Twenty most popular English sites on Japan

Following up a lead I saw on a post on SEO Book, I downloaded a list of the top one million web sites by traffic. With a quick search for the key phrases “japan”, “nippon”, “nihon” and “tokyo” and a sort, I condensed the 600 or more hits down to the short list below of the top twenty most visited Japan-related domain names. Note that the vast majority of the sites were actually pr0n-related, so I deleted them (and one dodgy search engine spam site) and thus present the edited top twenty. The full data is from Quantcast. FAQs about the data, and an interesting search feature, can be found here. Oh, and I’m at position 225,812, just in case you’re wondering.

UPDATE: I just had a trackback from The Otaku, and I see that site should be in the table at position number four. If there’s anyone else I’ve missed, please give me shout!

UPDATE 2: I forgot Danny Choo too! In he goes at number 9, although quite frankly he barely passes my pr0n filter.

UPDATE 3: And 3yen and metropolis.co.jp! Sorry guys!

UPDATE 4: And JREF comes in at number 12.

UPDATE 5: Thanks to a post on Japanator, I’ve revisited the list, and found many (too many?) extra sites, all manga and anime-related.

Top 52 most visited English-language sites about Japan

Rank URL Description
7897 www.japaneselifestyle.com.au An extremely plain low-maintenance site that probably rates as an authority site in Google.
8356 www.animecubed.com Anime wallpaper, images, etc.
9173 www.tokyopop.com US manga distributor.
9738 japan-guide.com Another extremely plain low-maintenance site that probably rates as an authority site in Google.
10959 www.animegalleries.net Anime wallpaper, images, etc.
11290 www.absoluteanime.com Anime character database.
11346 animeblogger.net Blogging site for anime fans.
11998 www.animenewsnetwork.com Anime news network, as you might have guessed.
12572 www.theotaku.com A site for fans of all things related to Japanese cartoons and animation.
13752 www.discountanimedvd.com A site for fans of all things related to Japanese cartoons and animation.
15462 www.minitokyo.net An anime art site that I’d never heard of before.
19287 www.animewallpapers.com Yet another anime wallpaper site.
22677 www.animelyrics.com Lyrics from anime theme songs.
23556 www.animenation.net Anime shopping site.
25104 www.anime.com Anime portal.
25618 4chan.org English version of 2ch.
27872 www.japantoday.com Japan news feeds and a large BBS community.
30049 www.animenfo.com Manga and anime database.
33153 web-japan.org Official Japanese goverment portal, but it seems to be broken.
36067 cdjapan.co.jp Anime media store.
36317 dannychoo.com Anime and idols.
38423 www.japanprobe.com The highest-rated site I regularly read. News from a side of Japan that is rarely seen.
38785 www.animelab.com Manga and anime image galleries, etc.
39645 www.animenation.com .com version of this anime shopping site.
40537 www.japantimes.co.jp Web site of one of Japan’s biggest English-language newspapers.
40864 www.animemetro.com Anime portal site.
40983 www.jref.com Big Japan reference site and active forums.
41168 www.animezen.net Another anime portal site.
41617 www.animechains.net Anime bulletin board site.
42178 www.animepaper.net Anime fan art and scans site.
42339 www.thisisanime.com Anime shopping site.
43336 www.teaching-english-in-japan.net English teacher-targeted portal, but a rather thin site. Perhaps they rank highly for a few key search terms?
44102 japanesetranslator.co.uk Japanese-English translator’s home page.
45824 www.japan-zone.com Big Japan-related portal
46971 japanimation.com Anime-related online store.
47296 animeondvd.com Anime-related online store.
47407 www.keiichianimeforever.com Anime portal.
52355 www.japan-partner.com Japanese car exporter.
52683 www.anime-planet.com Anime portal.
52892 www.animecornerstore.com Anime shopping site.
53004 www.animeforum.com Anime bulletin board site.
53058 www.3yen.com Blogging on Japan, another of my regular reads
53525 www.animecastle.com Anime shopping site.
53529 www.anime-source.com Anime portal.
54601 japancupid.com Dating site
54606 www.advancedanime.com Yet another anime gallery of fan art, etc
57464 metropolis.co.jp What’s on and other news magazine for Tokyo
57748 www.worldcupjapankorea.com Hasn’t been updated since the 2002 Japan/Korea World Cup, but still getting lots of traffic, it seems.
58984 animeworld.com Anime and other info about Japan
62144 www.megatokyo.com Long-running online comic based around Japan and gaming and other random stuff.
62881 www.myanimecards.com Electronic greetings cards in an anime style.
66082 japundit.com Another regular read for me. Collection of Engrish humour and news mostly from Japan.
67864 www.japanese-name-translation.com Does just what it says in the URL.

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  • 34 Comments

    Pages: « 1 [2] Show All

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    1. renaldo said,

      August 16, 2007 @ 01:37

      japanesetranslator.uk was very useful. thx.
      -renaldo, http://renaldo.4.dtiblog.com

    2. Cakedollar said,

      August 16, 2007 @ 03:37

      That was an interesting read. Found some new feeds to subscribe to :)

    3. Rangerjoe said,

      August 16, 2007 @ 20:24

      Maybe you need to add categories Japan portals, blogs, anime sites etc. If you don’t categorize it’s too general to be useful. Maybe just top 10 for each category.

    4. Ken Y-N said,

      August 16, 2007 @ 22:42

      Rangerjoe - that would be nice to do, but collecting the raw data is extremely time-consuming, and then categorisation is difficult too.

    5. My typical reader: underemployed oyaji! » 世論 What Japan Thinks said,

      September 7, 2007 @ 04:09

      […] on from last month’s post on the top twenty or more sites in English on Japan, I decided to add some code from Quantcast that allows collection of reader […]

    6. Japan Blog List said,

      November 3, 2007 @ 16:19

      Hey, great list you’ve compiled. I’ve managed to compile a list of current and complete blogs all about Japan, minus the spam and MFA websites. Your blog was one of the first blogs I added to my blog list. Feel free to return the link love, if you wish! Good day! :)

    7. tom said,

      March 10, 2008 @ 11:48

      hi there - I’m a bit late on this which could explain the gap, but actually PingMag’s Quantcast ranking is 28,497….. ;) tom

    8. felipe cueva said,

      March 17, 2008 @ 05:31

      I want to know why Japan is called ‘ijime land’ and what is the real meaning of ijime.

    9. Richard said,

      May 25, 2008 @ 16:14

      japan-guide.com=low maintenance site?

      living in Japan i always use that site, and i can always find out what i need to know

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