GOOG Stable After Friday's Price Surge

Despite a small 1% drop this morning, stock in internet giant Google (GOOG) appears to be stable at the new price level of approximately $533 per share, about a 20% increase from the lows of last week. Until Thursday's favorable earnings report Google stock had come under severe downward pressure after reports that revenue could suffer from a major slow down in the increase in paid clicking at Google - by far the internet's most important advertising venue with control of approximately half of all online advertising.

Thursday's earnings, however, indicated that the reports of a Google revenue demise from fewer clicks had been greatly exaggerated. Clearly Google's quality control initiatives have managed to pull more revenue from each click. Click growth is certainly slowing based on Comscore and other large scale reporting, but Google once again has pulled a revenue rabbit out of their magic hat and in doing so has recovered some of the value lost during the stock slide of the past several months.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been critical of what he feels was irresponsible reporting by Comscore that led analysts to conclude that Google was in serious trouble. Although Comscore and Google had issued clarification on the implications of the reporting, Google's stock price had suffered severely in Q1 2008, mostly on the basis of how analysts interpreted Comscore's findings of a serious slowdown in paid clicks.