Indian legal analysts have said that a recently changed law that strengthens restrictions against adult content on the internet is an unwieldy tool for affecting social change and not worth the hindrance to search engine optimization (SEO) and other online marketing tools.

Mumbai-based cyber law consultant Vijay Mukhi told PC World that "it is impractical to monitor pornography on the net. Rather than try to control all of pornography on the Internet, the government would be better off focusing on the more serious issue of child pornography."

While the major search engines – to a greater or lesser degree – have put measures in place to conform to India’s new crackdown on adult content, most are easily circumvented by simply changing the country setting on a dropdown list, since the engines frequently do not filter results based on IP address.

Search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns are routinely affected by local regulations on content, and the automated nature of the measures taken by the search engines can mean that innocent content is filtered as well, experts say.

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.