Shashwat Chaturvedi

MUMBAI: Vijetha Salian wanted to gift her husband a laptop on their wedding anniversary. She logged on to the Internet, opened a browser window, typed in www.google.com and keyed in “Laptop + Mumbai” in the search box. Within half an hour, she had selected a high configuration piece, paid for it and ensured that it will be delivered a week later, on their anniversary day.

Prashant Philipose wanted a DVD of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron a film by Kundan Shah; he conveniently searched it through Google, paid through his net-banking account and had it couriered to his residence.

Vijetha and Prashant are just two of the millions that make online purchases daily. E-commerce has been growing exponentially over the years. According to a Forrester Research Report, online spending reached $95.7 billion in 2003 and is estimated to grow to $229 billion in 2008, by an astounding 139%. Most of these purchases are made through search engines. People across the globe are using Google, Yahoo and MSN extensively to find what they want and where they want it.

Google currently rules the search engine traffic roost with approximately 39.4% market share. Breathing down Google's neck is Yahoo with a market share of around 30.4%. Followed by MSN at 29.6% and AOL at 15.5% (Source: Nielsen//NetRatings January 2004). According to an online report, Google and its partner sites were reporting a whopping 250 million searches a day in February 2003. That's a lot of traffic by any estimate.

In the U.S. and the U.K., December-end is the time for holiday shopping. Millions of people trying to beat the serpentine queues at Wal-Mart and Harrods prefer to make purchases online. In a recent story by the Guardian in the U.K., the newspaper created a spoof site and by the means of something known as search engine optimization, ensured that the bogus website was displayed on the front page of Google results.

With great powers come great responsibilities

Google indexes more than 8 billion pages to display the results that match your query. Vast majorities of people searching the World Wide Web don't go beyond the second or third result page. The power wielded by the websites displayed on those three pages is quite understandable and so is the immense competition among the rest to be the 'chosen one'. The benefits (economic ones, obviously) of being displayed on the top far outweigh any moral scruples; the ends justify the means. To this end, search engine optimization (SEO) is employed. It is a labyrinthine methodology that ensures the website is displayed at the very top for a few dollars more.

Search engine spiders are constantly updating the indexes to display the most apt result. Google employs a complex algorithm to display the results and SEO companies are constantly looking for ways to hoodwink these spiders. Over the last few years, this activity has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Organizations are increasingly looking at SEO companies to increase their page ranking on the search engines and are looking at ways to increasing their margins by off shoring this work to India.

Optimization India

For the search query “SEO + India” on Google, there were over two million results displayed, that will give one an idea of the popularity of these keywords. Take the instance of an Indian SEO company Convonix Inc., established three years ago by an engineering student in his twenties, Vishal Sampat, the company currently services many clients based in the U.S. and in the U.K. This 90 people company has revenues in range of Rs 10 million and hopes to double it next year. The reason for companies like Convonix flourishing is obvious, a SEO consultant in London or Los Angeles would charge anything from $100-300 per hour for the work a renowned Indian firm would happily complete for just $6000! It is not about money only, says Vishal adding, “There is also the added benefit of language skills and but of course the technical proficiency, hard to find anywhere else.”

Not only that, “Indian companies can compete with any international SEO companies on basis on the quality quotient,” says Milind Mody, CEO, eBrandz, he must know better as his company is rated highly in the marketplace.

Dancing the Google Dance

Getting yourself noticed by the search engine can be anything but easy, says Sameer Asher from Guide5.com, another big player in the outsourcing scene specializing in link building. Search engines like Google regularly update the database through its different servers, for a very brief amount of time (while the database is being updated) search results will differ in different locations, this is known as Google Dance. SEO companies like Guide5.com are constantly monitoring such lapses to know that Google is updating and map their activities to this cycle. In one of these recent updates, Sameer's company was thumbed down the order and he is currently working at his spacious office in Mumbai to ensure that he regains the crown position on page one.

With an increase in Internet penetration, there will be more and more companies in India that will be servicing clientele abroad. Ironically, many of SEO companies are known to outsource their work to companies like Convonix and pocket the big difference.

The War of the Engines

Google wins hands down in the war of the search engines, though Yahoo is trying its very best to trump the champ. Recently, Google acquired a five percent stake in AOL for a billion dollars, further strengthening its dominance of the marketplace. Though Milind from eBandz reminds you not to dismiss MSN as yet, “MSN has been coming up with new sets of features and they could be in the running for the top spot soon.” All the people were unequivocal about the fact that the outsourcing of SEO related work to India is going to increase in a big way. According to Milind, coporates will be shelling out close to $30 billion on SEO activities in the coming year and India can expect more than its fair share.

So the next time you purchase something from the Internet remember there could be a small setup down the lane that is compelling you to chose the vendor, not that anyone's complaining, except for the ones not on the list. There's a lesson for them it in all, type “SEO 2 India” in the search box and sing all the way to the bank.