Information Madness

Google India is going to initiate ‘India Get Your Business Online’ to offer a free website to SMEs. It is offering a personalized domain and hosting facilities to small and medium businesses across the country in partnership with the world’s leading US-based hosting company, HostGator. It is aiming to help about five million small and medium businesses in India to get online and use these facilities through this program in the next three years.

As per Google, India have over twenty six million small and medium businesses but only four million out of them own a website. This initiative by Google is aimed to bridge the information gap that exists online due to the complete lack of presence of local Indian businesses on the internet.

HostGator will offer free support in creating, managing and hosting the websites for a period of one year without any charge through its toll free numbers. Google will provide a variety of designs and templates from where the companies can select a layout for their websites. The services will also be offered in Hindi and other regional languages in order to reach out to a larger audience. This move by Google is also going to be supported by the Federation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and private lending Company, ICICI.

This program has already been launched in other countries. Currently, Google is not expecting to earn any revenue out of this project. This offer by Google is to create an internet push so that it can boost internet usage in Asia’s third largest economy.