Before the Start Searching India campaign was launched, did you know that Google would do your homework for you without giving a lecture on dishonesty, unlike your best friend who happens to be a whiz at math? For those who’d actually sit down to calculate 100*3.14-cos(83) in spite of having internet access, Google has kicked off the Start Searching India movement. Because let’s face it, not everyone is good at asking the right questions when researching a particular topic.
That’s exactly why Google is trying to educate as many people as possible on making the best use of the search engine. And it’s also trying to scoop in more ad revenue, of course. But the point is that the company has broken down a few ways in which users can search smarter. For example, deciding whether an umbrella is needed or not gets as simple as typing ‘weather,’ and then the relevant place’s name to access the current conditions and forecast there. Entering a math equation or something like ‘7 inches to cm’ into the search box is enough to obtain the proper answer.
The Mountain View crew has potential online shoppers nicely covered with the ability to get back at surfers with links to stores selling the products they’re hunting down for additional information or price comparisons. Users can narrow down movie theater locations and show timings or restaurants serving their choice of fare by merely adding the neighborhood they’re at (or intend to be at) after the movie name or cuisine type, correspondingly. A plain old request to ‘translate _____ (word/phrase) to _____ (language),’ ‘define _____ (word/phrase)’ and so on delivers the specific result.
But do note that the search engine may not always work the way it’s outlined to if users are on Google.com as opposed to the country-specific version of the search engine. ‘Cricket’ throws up carrier Cricket Wireless’ website first and then a few applicable links when typing the query into the global site’s search box. Looking up the said term through the India-centric portal shows the more relevant results including the scores of the most recent game, on the other hand.
With more and more telecom companies aggressively pushing out 3G services, the pace at which India consumes web content is only set to move quicker. Google has perhaps got into the game at the crucial moment. After all, giving maximum publicity to the search engine’s user-friendly side is probably the number one way to ensure that people keep coming back to it.