India is the largest open internet market in the world, with over a billion people online and growth still running in the tens of millions each year. Buyers here research heavily on mobile, mix English and Hindi in the same session, and increasingly ask AI assistants for recommendations before contacting a company.
Why Google runs search in India
StatCounter puts Google at roughly 98% of search in India as of August 2026, with Bing around 1% and DuckDuckGo and Yahoo under half a percent each. Android's dominance on Indian phones, Chrome as the default browser and Google's deep investment in Hindi and regional language search all reinforce that lead. For any business in India the practical takeaway is simple: Google.co.in is the market, and that includes Google Maps, YouTube and the AI Overviews that now sit above many results.
Languages and how people search in India
English carries most B2B and high-value commercial searches in India, especially in IT services, SaaS, finance and export businesses. Hindi and Hinglish queries are growing fast on mobile, along with Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and Marathi in their home states. Buyers often type transliterated Hindi in Latin script, so keyword research has to cover both scripts. Multi-language sites need hreflang tags for en-IN and hi-IN so Google serves the right version and avoids treating translations as duplicates.
How AI search is changing buyer behavior in India
Indian users were early adopters of ChatGPT and Gemini, helped by free tiers and Gemini's tight integration with Android. Google AI Overviews now answer a large share of informational queries in India in both English and Hindi, and many buyers ask an assistant to shortlist vendors before searching a brand name. Being cited in those answers depends on structured, factual content and consistent entity data, which is why Skyfield treats GEO as a standard part of every Indian campaign.
What it takes to rank on Google and get cited by AI
Winning in India starts with a fast mobile site, because most traffic comes from phones on variable connections. Clear service pages with schema markup, verified Google Business Profiles for each office, and consistent NAP data across Justdial, IndiaMART and industry directories build the entity that both Google and AI models trust. Content should answer buyer questions directly, cite real data, and exist in the languages your customers actually use. Digital PR in Indian business media then adds the authority signals that separate you from thin competitors.
Local SEO across India
Local intent is strong in India's business hubs, and each city has its own competitive landscape. We build location pages and Google Business Profiles for Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata and Ahmedabad, tuned to how people in each metro search. IT and SaaS firms lean on Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune; finance and media on Mumbai; manufacturing and exports on Chennai, Ahmedabad and the Delhi region.