Google and Hostgator Offer Indian Businesses Free Hosting, Domains and Other Perks

Google and Hostgator have teamed up to offer Indian businesses free hosting and domains to get as many small and medium businesses online as possible.

Through a program dubbed India Get Your Business Online, Google hopes to convince businesses who may be wary or just uninterested of the advantages of having a website for customers to reach them.

"The initiative aims to break down the barriers that stop small businesses from getting online - by offering a quick, easy and free tool to set up and host a website," Rajan Anandan, MD & Vice President, Sales & Operations, Google India, wrote.

"Our goal is to help 500,000 small medium businesses in India to get online in next three years through this program," he added.

Small business owners interested in creating their first website can visit the site created for the project. It is designed to get them going in a few steps and it also enables them to create their first website, from a template, quite easily.

Businesses will get a free .in domain, free hosting, for a year, and tools to create the website. They'll also get an email account via Google Apps and even phone support. Google is also providing $51, €39 worth of AdWords coupons.

After the first year is over, they can choose to continue to pay for the services or drop the website if it hasn't worked out.

There are eight million small businesses in India, but only 5 percent are online, Google says. The program aims to alleviate the biggest concerns business owners have about building a website, that it's complex, expensive and time consuming.

India Get Your Business Online hopes to solve all that and for the most part it does. If anything, it should show business owners that things can be done fast online and if they have positive results, they can expand to a more complex site later.