Search engines now go vernacular

Guruji.com offers searching in Hindi on its search engine.

The rush of online players to get a slice of the vernacular search market continues. This time around, guruji.com, a desi search engine, plans to steal the thunder from the likes of Google, Yahoo, MSN, having added the facility of searching in Hindi on its search engine.

Although heartening to see the Indian language usage on the net picking up, the Web2.0 startups and especially vernacular search engines such as Khoj, Bhramar, Guruji, Raftaar have yet to hit the big league in the search arena.

According to founders of guruji.com, roughly 80-90 per cent of all searches in India are local in nature. "Most of us use Google or the likes to query on city or area specific information and end up with results that are vaguely related to the query," says Anurag Dod, co-founder and CEO, guruji.com, adding, "It was only logical to have an India-specific search engine and what better than to have it in your regional language."

To begin with, the site will be launched in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada language and within a year another dozen would be added.

The biggest challenge with a vernacular search platform is the relevant results that determine the engagement of individual members.

According to Gaurav Mishra, co-founder & COO, guruji.com, the company plans to target the burgeoning number of internet users in tier II and tier III cities by the end of this year.

"We will add more regional content, like reviews and pictures besides putting our search engines on the regional media sites," he adds.

An image and video search is also in the pipeline, though it will first be in English followed by vernacular languages. Having invested over Rs 1 crore so far on infrastructure alone, the site will see double the amount of investment this year, "with significant amount being spent on developing the vernacular search and extending the city-based searched," adds Dod.

Sequoia Capital has committed to invest $7 million in the company. The site is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to adding the bells and whistles.

"Search engine-based marketing in India is doubling each year, though it still constitutes only a slim 2-3 per cent of the total ad spend in the country, pegged at $50 million by IAMAI," points out Mishra.

Guruji.com's focus on local content search has been a critical revenue source for them till date.

While not exactly minting money, Guruji.com's founders sure aspire to make some buck with vernacular search extending their hit rates.

There has been buzz attached around search sites such as Raftaar, Guruji and Bhramar but their reach and operations need to come out of the sleepy corners of Web 2.0.