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Where is India's Google?

Ojas Sharma
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Ojas Sharma
Though India is hailed as a technology hub, when it comes to search engines, the country is yet to churn out its own Google. "I think Indian Google is in the making. We are trying to replicate what Baidu has done in China," says Anurag Dod, CEO & Co-Founder, Guruji.com. Baidu is a search engine designed to cater to the Chinese market, which has been successful in diverting the traffic from Google. Indian search engines would like to replicate the same success. But apart from Guruji.com and another search engine iCognue, none does web search in India.

Google tops the list of search engines, but when it comes to India-specific search there are many loopholes. Realizing this opportunity, many entrepreneurs in India plunged in, but most of them had to become web directories to survive. "We have created a market for ourselves by making a business search engine that gives local information," says Shri Ram, Co-Founder of AskLaila.com.

However, Indian search engines face many challenges like the lack of infrastructure. While big search engines use crawler technology to keep themselves updated, lack of technology expertise and cost factor force Indian search engines to use human powered database. Another big challenge Indian search engines face is inadequate brand awareness. Not many know that something like AskLaila.com or Guruji.com exists.

However, amidst all these challenges, search engines have sprouted in India and competition has increased. Apart from Google and other big international search engines, there are Indian search engines like guruji.com, icognue.com, antya.com, asklaila.com and 123khoj.com, who are trying to lead the flock.

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