Six Indian websites among Alexa's global top 500
By Eureka Bharali   |   Friday, 15 May 2009, 00:00 IST
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Six Indian websites among Alexa's global top 500
Bangalore: The craze for internet hasn't proved much beneficial for the websites in India, as only six of all the websites featured in the Alexa global top 500 list are India based. It also enlists an Indian arm of a foreign website. The six websites include Rediff, India Times, In.com, Naukri, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism (IRCTC)and Monster. Topping the charts is the search engine Google followed by its rival Yahoo in the second place. "Yahoo, Google are all established players and it would be very difficult for Indian players to take over. To start new, the sites will have to concentrate on regional content. There are hesitations when it comes to the return on investment (ROI) and only a few fundings have taken place in this line," said Jagan Rao, Partner, Motorola Ventures. The newbies in the web world in India also needs to cope up with the declining internet users in India. As per a survey by the New Delhi-based online research company JuxtConsult, the number of web users in India has dropped by around three million in a year, reducing the number of netizens to 47 million in January 2009. "The new ideas get bottled up in the wake of discouragement in different forms like reduced internet penetration, lack of venture capitalists interest and the lack of internet users," said Sid Banerjee of Indusgeeks, a virtual worlds' development and services company. The aura of online communication has emerged stronger with Rediff being on the top at 76 followed by India Times at 207. Entertainment portal In.com is at the 333rd position and the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism (IRCTC) is at 466. The two job portals - Naukri and Monster grabbed 406th and 474th position in the list. "There is lack of innovation and most of the websites are based on models that already exist. We are always open to funding, however, we have not found anything of interest in this space," said Rajesh Sukumaran, Country Manager, Mercatus Capital.

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