‘Youngistan’ clicks no 2 in search queries

India has surged ahead of the rest to become number two when it comes to the absolute volume of education-related search queries on global online search engine Google.

In a study titled ‘Students on the web’, compiled by Google India, the country has raced to the second spot as against No.8 in 2008.

The study was compiled after combining Google search query patterns with an offline research conducted by TNS Australia on behalf of Google India.

The study reveals that over 60 per cent Indian students, who have access to the Internet, use it as their first tool to search for information related to educational courses and institutes.

The company attributed this trend to India’s large number netizens in the age group of 18-35 years.

Also, education related queries on Google in India are growing at over 46 per cent while over 40 per cent of queries are for higher education courses and institutes. Factoring in the large number of smartphone users in the country, the company said  searches on cell phone saw a growth of over 135 per cent, amounting to over 22 per cent of all education- related search queries.

IT/Vocational (44 pc) were the most “searched for” courses, followed by engineering (40 pc) and MBA programmes (16 pc).

Rajan Anandan, V-P and Managing Director of Google India, said, “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.”

The company shared their methodology for the report  and said that it had respondents base of 2,229, (52 pc female, 48 pc male) and covered seven cities: New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bangalore.