India Ranks Second Globally for Education Related Queries

Bangalore: With over half of the Indian Internet population in the age bracket of 18-35, India has raced to the number 2 spot globally when it comes to absolute volume of search queries related to Education on Google Search. India was ranked # 8 in 2008 and is now behind only to the U.S. This was revealed in a study titled “Students on the web” compiled by Google India. The study revealed that over 60 percent Indian students, who have access to Internet, use it as their first source to research for information related to educational courses and institutes.

Education related queries on Google in India are growing at over 46 percent year on year - highlighting the strong demand for information on institutes and courses that are available in the country.  Out of all education related search queries on Google, over 40 percent of queries were for higher education courses and institutes. Search queries coming from mobile phones have also grown considerably showing a growth of over 135 percent y-o-y and amounting to over 22 percent of all education related search queries.

In terms of types of courses being searched for on Google - IT/Vocational (44 percent) courses were the most searched courses, followed by a strong demand for engineering courses (40 percent) and institutes, followed by postgraduate courses with MBA (16 percent) being the most searched.

Rajan Anandan, VP and Managing Director of Google India said, “With over 60 million Internet user population in India being in age group of 18-35, educational related search queries are exploding on Google. Our core objective behind compiling this study was to understand the impact Internet is having on this young population with regard to education related decision making by the students. With more and more users getting online every day, Internet today is the biggest catchment area for youth and we hope this study will help advertisers realize the potential of the digital medium.”