Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24585998

by oulipian • 13 years ago

272 244 13 years ago

bbc.co.uk

fear912• 13 years ago

I guess the June search-algorithm updates really worked. (Kicking out everyone that earns without giving Google it's piece of the pie).

Google keeps removing small business websites from its results, forcing them to use Ad-Words. This strategy cannot be sustained unless they want 100% commercial / 100% junk results. I wonder what will they do in the future.

hartator• 13 years ago

We notice some changes too since june, you think it's too push people to buy adwords? I feel too that small websites have trouble to rank against bigger ones.

drzaiusapelord• 13 years ago

This is no conspiracy. Ignoring that larger sites have better page rank, they can also spend more on SEO.

Ma and Pop's widget shop is a wordpress clunker built by their teen son. He's not spending 20 hours a week watching metrics and messing with SEO. $big_shop_webmaster certainly is.

NathanKP• 13 years ago

I'm no Google fanboy but what you are saying is a pretty strong accusation. Where is the data to back what you are claiming Google is doing?

sharkweek2• 13 years ago

I'm not going to defend the overall conspiracy here but I totally buy into the theory that Google would prefer a big brand ranking over several small businesses...

The logic in my mind is -- Google wants the rankings to be unequivocally trustworthy, e.g., if I'm searching for an espresso machine, would I trust a small ecommerce shop where the experience could be terrible or do we just throw an Amazon or Bed Bath and Beyond result at the top because those are vetted companies.

Sure, the little guy has to grind to get a better ranking and free traffic, but it should in the long term encourage better behavior by companies as they attempt to earn that trust.

anon13853• 13 years ago

http://i.imgur.com/eBtzYic.png see any organic search results there?

iamhungry6• 13 years ago

Data straight from Google's mouth. Their Google properties ad clicks increased by 22%, an astounding number when Adsense stayed flat. All ads above fold is a great steroid shot but horrible long term strategy.

krelian2• 13 years ago

You have some examples? I'll be happy to see because as someone who searches I'm pretty happy with the results I'm seeing.

hugofirth2• 13 years ago

Anti-competitive lobbies, hugely funded by Google's competitors, have tried to make that stick in the US and EU. They have largely failed to do so both times. Prove it :)

fear912• 13 years ago

I guess since Google got a court verdict stating that their search results are their "opinion" and thus "free speech", they cannot be really attacked from this point. Add to that the fact that their algorithm is top-secret and probably heavily compartmentalized and it becomes even harder.

I am not arguing whether Google breaks a law or not, I simply say that they hurt the smaller players. Getting rankings is getting harder and harder with each update. Soon, paying for AdWords will be the only affordable option.

hvass• 13 years ago

And this is based on what? If people are 'forced' to use AdWords it would be because of the move towards 100% not provided keywords in natural search, thus nudging you to go into AdWords to see the full search report.

tonfa2• 13 years ago

I really don't understand that. What is the relation between AdWords and not having keywords provided? Won't the search query report in adwords have actually less data than what you get for free with webmaster tools?

(With adwords you will only see the traffic from the keywords you decided to bid on, while webmaster tools will show all the organic traffic, including segments you didn't know about).

900022• 13 years ago

Can you provide any data support this claim? I haven't recognized massive removal of small business websites, but I may be wrong.

moultano6• 13 years ago

Google does not make ranking changes based on revenue. We don't even collect statistics about that for ranking changes. Worrying about the fate of small sites in Google's rankings is a reasonable concern, and one that we share. But whatever you think we are doing incorrectly in ranking, it has nothing to do with making more money.

iamhungry6• 13 years ago

We don't even collect statistics about that for ranking changes.

Who's "we"? Are you Larry Page to speak with such confidence? Nope, just a lowly engineer being observed by hundreds of Stanford and ivy League MBAs as your changes impact Ad Clicks, the golden eggs.

orealy• 13 years ago

What brings the question is 10+ straight quarters of double-digit increases in paid clicks despite only single digit increases in traffic.

That could be

- More ads, in places where organic used to be - Lower quality organic results

From where I sit, neither of those reflect an engineer's preference. I'd be more interested in hearing an explanation for a runaway ad click growth than hearing a very specific denial.

cylinder• 13 years ago

I started with adWords and then quickly got into the first page for organic. It doesn't matter, I still get negligible organic traffic, it's almost all paid. Seems like consumers have been trained to go to adwords results when they're looking for a service or good they want to pay for, and organic when searching pure information (free).

JonSkeptic• 13 years ago

I think this is interesting because it matches my user experience with Google products in a very inverted way. Google search has gotten worse and worse lately, forcing me on to other search engines with worse UIs just so that I can get useful results. Youtube UI gets worse every time they update it. They cancelled the RSS reader. The email UI keeps getting worse and featuring more ads.

But the stock value hit $1000. I guess they're doing something right, it's just not something that affects me in any positive way.

[EDIT]:'affects', not 'effects'

lawdawg• 13 years ago

This is because Google has started optimizing for the 99% use case, which most HN'ers usually don't fall under. They originally optimized for what most Googlers like (who are generally the 1%) and have since learned that you can't run a business just pleasing the elite and whiny ones.

joelrunyon• 13 years ago

They originally optimized for what most Googlers like (who are generally the 1%) and have since learned that you can't run a business just pleasing the elite and whiny ones.

Well you can - you just can't offer the service for free.

golergka• 13 years ago

I'm a bit confused about that. Doesn't their algorithm take the user's profile into account?

iamhungry6• 13 years ago

Data shows differently.

Google AD CLICKS increased by 22% and PPC went down 4%-8% so Googe made it up on volume. If showing more ads and/or making ads better than organic search is "optimizing for the 99% use case" then you aright.

But as shown on a few comments below Google in many cases shows only ads on the first browser screen. Terrible for users and terrible for Google long term. They should enjoy the steroid boost while it lasts.

r0h1n• 13 years ago

Surely it can't be the case that Google was serving the 1% till recently. Their products - Gmail, YouTube, Android, Search, Maps etc. - are all leaders in their categories. So the 1%-to-99% argument doesn't quite hold.

I personally think Google held itself back from OTT monetization strategies all these years as it waited for (a) its individual products to become undisputed market leaders, and (b) a unified privacy/social glue across all its products.

Now that the majority of users are locked in to Google - to specific products and across their entire suite of products - they are lifting their self-imposed restraints on privacy/aesthetics/advertising.

turing• 13 years ago

And in my experience Google products have gotten significantly better and more polished in the last few years. Goes to show that their products aren't getting worse, just shifting in focus and priority.

wtvanhest• 13 years ago

Which products specifically have gotten better?

jwcooper• 13 years ago

Some products have improved, and some have gotten worse (losing Exchange on Gmail, Reader, Google Talk, Google Checkout) and some haven't changed in years (Google Finance).

I use a lot of Google services, and it's frustrating when they keep removing features, or killing off products that I use daily. It's gotten to the point where I'd rather pay for a service now and be the customer rather than signing up for another Google product.

raldi2• 13 years ago

Google search has gotten worse and worse lately, forcing me on to other search engines with worse UIs just so that I can get useful results

Can you give a few example queries?

ProAm2• 13 years ago

These days I find Google is good for finding things you already know but don't remember. e.g. Number to my favorite Thai restaurant. But has become worse for finding things you don't know. I encounter this a lot when Im trying to find information related to my work but am not knowledgeable enough to narrow my keywords. Mainly programming or server related info....

oellegaard• 13 years ago

Their new Google Apps control panel is impossible to use. It has icons that doesn't correspond to the function and no labels. It's like walking around in a nuclear control panel with no lights on.

While I'm moving my e-mail away from Google, the last thing I still use is the search, which still feels light weight and easy to use.

chill1• 13 years ago

.. the last thing I still use is the search, which still feels light weight and easy to use.

If you haven't, you should really give DuckDuckGo [1] a shot. I used Google's search for the longest time, and finally just forced myself to switch to DDG this summer. It was rough for a while, but either I've gotten used to their search algorithm / results, or the results have gotten better. I hardly ever have to use Google's search to find anything anymore.

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=duckduckgo

icefox2• 13 years ago

Yeah I switched my domain to Google Apps this year and somewhat regret it. It is pretty clear that Google Apps might work, but clearly it is made for the guy that is being paid to deal with its interface and can spend hours if not days just getting basic things working as he tries to figure out the docs (most all public discussions of course talk about the old control panel and link are busted etc) when he runs into a problem. And as a bonus anyone else notice how the POP interface fails to implement a core "feature" of pop. When using POP with google apps and you try to delete an email it doesn't actually get deleted. tricky tricky

foobarqux• 13 years ago

It's a good indication of market power (and therefore business value) when products get worse but users still buy.

pacofvf• 13 years ago

I hate the new UI for gmail, (mobile and web) is the worst aberration in the history of google UIs. For example for web, now they hide the "from", "cc", "cco" fields, also they moved the reply, reply to all and forward to a drop down menu. The attach, and format buttons now are tiny and moved to the bottom. In the mobile they removed the check-boxes so when you want to select multiple mails you have to keep pressed a mail until it becomes blue and to select the other mails you have to tap where it used to be a check-box and if you mistakenly tap the title of the mail then your selection is lost and it opens that mail in a new view. They also hided the "from", "cc", "cco" fields in the mobile version. I seriously considering to use other clients.

Spittie• 13 years ago

In the mobile they removed the check-boxes so when you want to select multiple mails you have to keep pressed a mail until it becomes blue and to select the other mails you have to tap FYI, you can just tap on the email's avatar to select them. Maybe not the simplest interface, but it works well once you get used to it.

lnanek22• 13 years ago

Agreed. They are removing features that were quite valuable for me, especially in apps like Google Maps, and I absolutely hate the new ads that look like email rows in GMail and don't let me delete them. I can move off their web email client, but Maps is tough to replace. Will have to move to Apple or Nokia or something.

moultano6• 13 years ago

If you have any example bad queries, I'd love to see them to debug. If you have your search history on, you can find them here: https://history.google.com/history/

iamhungry6• 13 years ago

If you have any example bad queries

Hey Moultano, how come Google's ad clicks increased by 22% this quarter when Adsense was largely flat? Oh, I see. You decided that Google's properties are more "relevant" especially the ads.

Nice scam you got going.

leephillips2• 13 years ago

This is the exact reply you offered me a few weeks ago when we were complaining about w3schools ranking at the top of Google's results. Ultimately, your "debugging" amounted to explaining that you rank lower-quality results higher because they are more "popular", and therefore, somehow, more useful.

I still don't understand the strategy of promoting less reliable, poorer quality information as a way to help the user. But it's easy to understand as a (short term) way to help Google, as these low-quality sites invariably carry Adsense, and the better sites often do not.

jamra• 13 years ago

Shutting down reader will give them stock value. Google plus is now the aggregation of your niche content. Reader was obsoleted by Google plus. This makes it easier to track an individual as well as create more intelligence on ads for that individual's likes.

More ads in the email app gives more revenue. Youtube is integrated into Google plus which helps them target ads even more.

It makes a lot of sense to me.

tehwebguy• 13 years ago

Maybe shittier search results cause more clicks on the ads made to look like search results?

sahaj• 13 years ago

In my opinion, the increase in Google share price really has to do with the Motorola purchase. There is a potential that Motorola phones could some day be just as popular as Samsung or Apple - this a huge add to the share price and Google's revenue and profits. Just take 10% the market cap of Apple and Samsung and add it to Google, you'll see the picture.

epynonymous• 13 years ago

for the record, it's the 90 per cent use case.

TomGullen• 13 years ago

A nice 10 ball if you got in on their IPO.

pyrrhotech• 13 years ago

or the 900 calls last night

AtTheLast• 13 years ago

I wish I would have bought some calls. Google always seems to smash earnings and jump up a nice percentage.

giarc• 13 years ago

Would you still be holding onto those shares at this point? I would hope so but perhaps many sold earlier.

wehadfun• 13 years ago

I found an article from 2007 that predicted this. May be some even earlier.

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/06/06/google-hits-all-tim...

hdevalence• 13 years ago

Such predictions are only relevant if we also see all of their other past predictions, of course.

Theodores• 13 years ago

Advertising sales is a good indicator as to how well the economy is doing - if times are good then people advertise, if everyone is screaming recession then there is not so much money around to advertise.

Hence, if Google does well does that mean the economy as a whole is doing well? Is the Google share price a good indicator, perhaps a better indicator than conventional metrics such as employment level or the FTSE?

yetanotherphd2• 13 years ago

No, GDP growth and unemployment are better measures.

chimeracoder• 13 years ago

No, GDP growth and unemployment are better measures.

GDP alone is a sufficient statistic, since the definition of a recession is very precise, and is based on GDP growth.

nostrademons4• 13 years ago

Grandparent poster is looking for leading indicators, since that's where you make your money. GDP growth, by definition, tracks how the economy is doing today. Unemployment is a lagging indicator, tracking how the economy did a few months ago, because it takes businesses time to hire. Bond yields and stock market prices are considered leading indicators, because traders try to anticipate how the economy will do in the future.

To beat the market you need reliable indicators that are more leading than the stock market. Some of the ones people look at are advertising spending (companies only advertise when they expect consumers will have money to spend in the near future), capital investment (companies invest in new productive capacity when they expect demand will be higher in the future), and R&D spending (companies can only afford to spend on speculative goals when they have cash burning a hole in their bottom line).

brymaster2• 13 years ago

No, dollars are scarce so there's more competition for those dollars. Advertising has become more relevant but that's not an indicator that "times are good." Tactics are used to get people to spend money they don't have.

debt• 13 years ago

It seems Google has entered a stage where the data is starting to really pay off. They seem to be using it not only to help consumers but also tweak their own business decisions. That's some powerful stuff.

brymaster2• 13 years ago

No, Google is merely squeezing organic results off their SERPs and replacing them with ads. That's not helping consumers as they prefer organic results. They have to continuously stuff more ads into the model to keep the growth machine running, making tweaks here and there. Google is probably only a few years away from adding "paid inclusion" into the results like Yahoo used to have, where you could literally pay to have your result listed at the top of the page where it wouldn't look like an advertisement.

"Google said that paid-for clicks increased by a quarter during the July-to-September period, from a year earlier, the highest rate of growth in the past year."

How Google is Killing Organic Search

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5971560

Forrester: Consumers Prefer Organic Search, Not Search Ads, For Discovery

http://searchengineland.com/forrester-consumers-prefer-organ...

dragontamer• 13 years ago

The value of a company is not measured in its individual stock price, but instead measured in its market cap.

The real headline should be: Google hits $330 Billion market cap, making it the 3rd most valuable company in the world.

Mikeb852• 13 years ago

True that. Too many people are obsessed with the stock price, when really it's just marketcap/outstanding shares...

ChikkaChiChi2• 13 years ago

If a person owns share of GOOG, then I think its allowable.

nonchalance4• 13 years ago

$1000/sh seems like a more momentous headline than $330B market cap.

On the other hand, It's more likely that we see the headline "$1T company" than "$3030.30/sh"

astrodust2• 13 years ago

They could've hit this years ago by doing a 10:1 stock consolidation. Fetishizing over share prices is meaningless. What if they had only six shares?

Market cap is what matters.

temuze• 13 years ago

Breaking news: Prominent company's stock value gets to big round number.

900022• 13 years ago

Agreed.

Surprised to see so many financially-minded people fail to understand how the market cap is a better indicator value, not individual stock price.

Granted, this is still a great feat for $GOOG, and it appears they will continue to innovate and sustain such growth.

nostrademons4• 13 years ago

I think it's a second-order, behavior-finance oriented line of thinking. I know that stock price is basically arbitrary and market cap is a much better measure of value. (And arguably, earnings and growth rate are even better than market cap.) However, I also know that many people consider $1000/share to be an important psychological milestone, and that it will command news headlines when the stock makes it. And so, understanding that the stock market is to some extent a beauty contest and other peoples' perception of a stock's momentum influences the stock price, it's rational for me to believe that when it hits $1000 it will go up, at least in the short term. It's also rational for me to feed into and cheerlead that perspective, because as a Google shareholder, I benefit when other people believe Google stock is going up.

trevmckendrick• 13 years ago

Share price is relatively meaningless. It needs to be paired to total shares outstanding.

It's arbitrary by itself because it's a function of shares outstanding and total market value, one of which the company can (relatively easily) control via stock splits.

smoorman1024• 13 years ago

Well GOOG added $36 billion dollars of market cap overnight. To put that into perspective that is 9 BBRYs (RIMM), 1.5 TSLA's, 1.5 LNKD's, or 0.5 UNP's (Union Pacific).

xentronium• 13 years ago

How come LNKD is so expensive?

yetanotherphd2• 13 years ago

I don't think stock splits usually result in "X stock price plummets by 50%" headlines.

guiomie• 13 years ago

I don't think this is what he was insinuating either.

ketralnis• 13 years ago

Nobody is denying this. It's an all-time high for this company. Where do you see people claiming that the $1k number is meaningful on its own?

pslam2• 13 years ago

$1000 is meaningful on its own but not for the reasons most of these comments think: it's an awkwardly large amount to pay for a single share, and an even more awkwardly large amount to pay for a standard option.

Standard options are contracts of 100 shares, so that's $100,000 covered by a single option, which at current prices are about $2,500 each. This puts it out of the realm of small time investors, which is why GOOG is one of the few options available as "mini": 10 share contracts. Even at mini it's damn expensive per option.

I wouldn't be surprised if they split the stock at some point soon.

ISL• 13 years ago

Also impressive is the market capitalization per permanent employee: $337B/46,421 = $7.3 M per employee.

achllies• 13 years ago

Share price is hardly meaningless. Most people (correctly, i might add) think in term of relative movement of the share price, since that is the easiest one to track. In fact, as the second line of the article says: "Shares in the giant online search and ads company rose more than 13% to $1,006, and are now up 41% since the start of 2013." Such a big jump in a big company is what makes this really newsworthy.

plywoodtrees4• 13 years ago

As far as I can see GOOG has never split?

ChikkaChiChi2• 13 years ago

This anecdotally proves that focusing in on your core business can result in stronger earning potential. It's not a new concept, but it is somewhat easier to explain to my boss (who needs to learn focus).

fersho3115• 13 years ago

Chipotle hit $500 for the first time ever: https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ACMG&ei=R15hUrCcG6i2i...

As we head towards a strong earnings season, I feel that we might see many companies hitting their highest ever stock price, especially now that the government shutdown has been resolved (sort of)

adventured• 13 years ago

54 PE ratio, growing at 6%. Welcome to another extreme Fed bubble, round three. A round of POMO shots on the house!

What happens to stocks with 60 and 80 pe ratios, growing at 6% to 12% when the music stops? Same thing that always happens.

Need a Dr. Koop example? How about RetailMeNot (SALE). By the time this bubble is done, they'll probably have a $2.5 to $3 billion market cap, with not even the slightest of fundamentals to support that.

Yellen's dove policy will see this stock market pushed to the limits, and then see it crash spectacularly, again. Repeating asset bubbles is the only trick they know.

fersho3115• 13 years ago

Good point. But till the crash, lets ride the wave and make some money.

robryan• 13 years ago

I think this is on the back of product listing ads which are now aggressively pushed, these combined with regular ads crowd out the organic results on ecommerce bases searches.

Unlike text based ads which require significant time/ tech investment to create a campaign across a large number of products, product listing ads just require a merchant to upload a feed.

ChuckMcM3• 13 years ago

Google historically left a lot of money on the table (not using every spot on the page for ads, giving away services with real value, etc.) They decided to stop doing that when they decided they were a 'peer' of Apple's.

The shareholders love it because it means Google will finally be pulling in as much cash as they 'can' vs as much as they needed. Users seem to be somewhat divided on the issue.

Sophisticated users and people who are long time observers (like Danny Sullivan) have noted that Google is squeezing the value proposition at the expense of people who can ill afford it. ('Ranking' on Google is very much a pay to play kind of thing these days with their page layout). As others have mentioned they have gone all in as an exploiter of their demographic data. And "thinking big" as Larry would always exhort people to do, includes thinking about how much money you could get for the sorts of things that only someone who has Google's knowledge of the activity stream can get.

Now historically this has often been associated with fading influence and success (the old 'killing the goose that lays the egg' kind of thing). It will be interesting to see if Google is an example of this or they manage to grow into actually being a peer of Apple.

md2242• 13 years ago

'Ranking' on Google is very much a pay to play kind of thing these days with their page layout

Could you expand on this? Are you referring to how AdWords content is visually privileged over organic search results?

mkhaytman• 13 years ago

That, and Google have been introducing more services into the results page (flight shopping comparison, for example).

You can see an article by Danny Sullivan from this summer here: http://searchengineland.com/google-results-too-ad-heavy-1662...

And this is great breakdown of the various types of results Google is providing these days: http://moz.com/blog/mega-serp-a-visual-guide-to-google

650REDHAIR2• 13 years ago

Purely anecdotal here, but when I search Google on my mobile browser I'm only seeing 1 or 2 results per page. I've pretty much given up using it on my phone now.

ChuckMcM3• 13 years ago

I think Danny Sullivan over at Searchengineland has done a better job of chronicling the changes but to give you a flavor, the size of the ad space before the first organic has grown tremendously, the injection of Google properties (G+, Youtube, etc) has further pushed on search results. When a buying intent is detected the 'shopping' bar activates which only shows shopping results from people who advertise on Google, etc.

An interesting experiment is to look at every link on the search results page and try to figure out how many don't generate cash for Google, its getting harder to find more than one, yet when Google was started it only profited from the ad-links.

As others have mentioned search has changed. There is no longer a big push for 'finding things on the web' which was the appeal of early search engines, now the bulk of the web use search as their portal to a giant reference library and product catalog. One of the things Google tried to monetize and failed was reference information (Knol) so now more and more they just show you the fact you were looking for, scraped from some web page, right on their page, no need to click away.

I think it was a smart move on their part from the shareholder perspective (disclosure I sold all my Google stock at $650 :-(). The second order effects though will be interesting. You see if Google becomes just a catalog, sort of like SkyMall "Magazine" in airplane seats, then it risks losing all of its unique utility. I'm certain that Microsoft can construct an equally compelling catalog as can Yahoo. This will shape the future for them.

devx• 13 years ago

As others have mentioned they have gone all in as an exploiter of their demographic data

Oh, and exploit it they will. As expected, a future where "privacy" will become a lot more important, would be the "enemy" of what Google is trying to do, as long as ads are their main source of revenue.

Lloyd made his pitch, proposing a quantum version of Google’s search engine whereby users could make queries and receive results without Google knowing which questions were asked. The men were intrigued. But after conferring with their business manager the next day, Brin and Page informed Lloyd that his scheme went against their business plan. “They want to know everything about everybody who uses their products and services,” he joked.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/computers-big-data...

I'm hoping sooner rather than later, Google will find another cash cow, perhaps in self-driving cars, or Google Glass, or Calico or whatever, that will allow them to make a lot of money from that, and not be as desperate about tracking every single thing everyone wants does online, almost as much as the NSA.

Until that happens, we won't be seeing any true secure or private services from Google, because the desire to track will always come first, before anything.

grey-area5• 13 years ago

Both Google and Apple have reached this stage at around the same time in my opinion - both are now milking existing users rather than looking for innovative new markets or products. Once companies grow to a certain size it seems almost inevitable.

oh_sigh• 13 years ago

Yeah, self driving cars, google glass, and loon are not innovative new markets at all.

ChuckMcM3• 13 years ago

I'm not sure of the 'milking users' (which seems more pejorative than I feel about the situation). It's more of a 'business rules' than 'loose rules.'

I was at Google from 2006 to 2010, I arrived just after they decided "mini kitchens" (which were amazing collections of snacks and drinks near every bunch of engineers) needed to be reigned in, and left just after the first of the big purges of non-project projects. I was fortunate that since I had worked for Eric Schmidt at Sun we knew each other enough that I felt comfortable asking him pointed questions, like "Uh, seriously? What does changing out the juice supplier (Odwalla) for a cheaper one do for employess?" And he would often answer with insights into Google 'growing up' in many ways the same way Sun did. Much of the fiscal questions were being driven by Patrick Pichette who was the new CFO and trying to get a handle on where all the money was going, and of course in 2009 there was the economic crash and it really drove home the issue of "How much money is 'too much?'" (answer none) and "How much money do we need for the worse case scenario?" (answer all we can get) and questions of "Gee we burn money like gasoline, what would happen if suddenly nobody wanted to advertise on the Internet?" Those kinds of questions lead to a maturation process around money, and making sure that all the money that could be in the bank, was in the bank. Just good business. Challenging to make compelling user experiences though, although Apple had done so.

So long way of saying I don't think that Google is "milking" their customers so much as they are no longer giving quite the value they used to, choosing instead to keep that additional value for themselves.

sytelus• 13 years ago

On my 26" display I have almost never seen ads taking up all the space. In fact most of the time, there is one or two ads at the top and rest 80% of the space if organic search results. People cherry pick examples to show how bad ads are but in general it's not true. So, no, ranking is still critical, well and alive with good algorithms.

Current revenue increase is because of YouTube's contribution that's finally happening. YouTube had been time bomb in terms of revenue explosion that has been ticking for a long while. YouTube probably generates more views then most popular TV channels but there were hardly any ads until recently. My guess is that YouTube might come close to revenues eventually to web search itself.

azakai• 13 years ago

On my 26" display I have almost never seen ads taking up all the space

It depends what you search for. If you search for something Google can monetize, like this search for sofas

http://i.imgur.com/KAZ6zuq.jpg

then little room is left for "normal" results. But if you search for something non-monetizable, of course less ads will show up.

flaktrak• 13 years ago

Above the fold on my 26" screen http://i.imgur.com/yXya3MI.png . As you can see 0 blue links!

Pxtl• 13 years ago

Fortunately, Google isn't HP. They're not mining their good brand-name for crap, they're still trying to push quality products (at leaast, the ones they can monetize). The new WebGL Google Maps is wonderful, and Google's most ad-heavy search-results are cases where you're probably shopping and so their products (with prices) + local vendors + ads approach is actually what you're looking for.

blisterpeanuts2• 13 years ago

Sure wish I'd bought some when it first came out at $180.

blisterpeanuts2• 13 years ago

$85, actually!

qdog3• 13 years ago

Google doesn't pay dividends or give public shares voting rights, while I get it that people believe the intrinsic value will appear at some point, this is not how I would like to invest money in a company, regardless of what price the stock hits.

vpeters25• 13 years ago

I think the same and wonder why aren't shareholders pressuring Google to start paying dividends.

jpadkins• 13 years ago

because goog is a type of tech startup fund. Its a bet that google can identify, acquire, and integrate high quality tech companies and get better returns than any etf or hedge fund can. Some investors want google to take those profits from the cash cows and spend it on tech ventures instead of dividends.

qdog3• 13 years ago

Shareholders don't have voting rights, how can they pressure Google to do anything? I don't know if they should be paying a dividend at the moment, but their stock conveys no power to the stockholder. It's like paying taxes without getting to vote.

Their stock price might go up for the next decade for all I know, and it's not like they don't make money or something. I just don't want to invest my money without getting something in return other than the ability to convey my investment to someone else.

atlanticus• 13 years ago

So I guess the Snowden leaks collapsing US internet dominance didn't materialize.

jamesaguilar• 13 years ago

Well, two issues. First, there hasn't really been much time for viable replacements to be constructed, so who knows? Second, people who thought that was a likelihood as opposed to a faint possibility were deluding themselves.

largote• 13 years ago

Only a very small proportion of the population cares about this.

dm2• 13 years ago

Would a reverse stock split or stock merge encourage more people to buy the stock or less, or no effect?

thrownaway2424• 13 years ago

More people would buy it, because small portfolios would be able to afford a share without ridiculous risk imbalances.

fersho3115• 13 years ago

Fun fact: If you had bought a call yesterday for $300, it would now be worth $3100. 1000% return on investment.

Yesterday I bought a chipotle call (because of earnings release) for $600 and now its worth $3600

Now that the political budget debate is over, I think we will see a spectacularly volatile movement upwards and strong earnings will push stocks to absurd prices way over any reason. The best thing to do is to ride the wave and make some extra cash. It doesn't make any sense (price vs earnings), but as long I'm making money thats okay.

Do keep in mind that Google did not jump $130/share because its earnings was spectacularly better than ever. It made this huge jump because the market is headed for another bullish run and the market is crazy.

I trade stocks on the side for fun, and I blog about my trades here: http://songzmoney.quora.com/

junto• 13 years ago

Newbie here. How and where can you 'buy these calls'?

fersho3115• 13 years ago

Any trading platform will let you buy calls and puts. They are called options. Here's a few examples: scottrade, ameritrade, etrade. I personally use ameritrade.

dennisgorelik• 13 years ago

Don't buy, unless you want to gamble away some of your cash.

Hermel• 13 years ago

Google has a tradition of jumping up to 10% in either direction after quarterly releases. It might be worthwhile to buy both, put and call options before a release and then profit from the one that goes into the money.

ilyanep• 13 years ago

I believe that's called a butterfly. I don't know how common they are but I've certainly heard of people doing this on stocks they believe will be volatile.

fersho3115• 13 years ago

Tried that last quarterly earnings season, and the stocks started off the day at -5%, then grew and at the end of the day ended up at -0.8%

Lost $2000. http://songzmoney.quora.com/Placing-the-best-bet-on-Google-e...

MarkMc2• 13 years ago

Let's say you play blackjack and are dealt a 20. If you then hit and get an Ace, does that mean it was the right decision?

neuralk• 13 years ago

The "right" decision depends on more information. For example, hitting on 20 is the right decision if you are betting no money or money that isn't your own.

damon_c2• 13 years ago

It was the right decision if you had been counting cards and you had information that the next card would be an ace.

znowi• 13 years ago

And no privacy issues, NSA revelations, services shutdown, Google+ coercion, and further exploitation of users have any effect on the bottom line. You can get away with anything when you're big and important.

elwell• 13 years ago

wow, they went up over $100 today. https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...

jluxenberg• 13 years ago

P/E remains pretty stable at 30-ish

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+p%2Fe+and+price+NA...

keepkalm• 13 years ago

Wonder if people actually went out and spent on AdWords when the organic keyword data went to 100% not provided. Has to account for at least some of it.

tonfa2• 13 years ago

Why would they? Using adwords doesn't give you the data that used to be provided. The search query report does the same kind of aggregation as webmaster tools.

ashray5• 13 years ago

Its interesting how $1000 is a psychological number for a lot of people, $1000 number makes the Google stock join some "prestigious" $1000 club according to CNBC. Some people now think its too expensive because of its $1000 and Facebook is in $50s.

If Google decided to split the stock early on, it wouldn't have seen this day, and all the news that comes with crossing the $1000 mark.

So much for all the financial models that assume investors are rational.

yeukhon• 13 years ago

I am always surprised at how much Google can make. I always see ads but I barely ever clicked on ads. I might click on one or two ocassionally. I might click on a few ads before Youtube content is loaded for me. But that's it. I can understand a few clicks * two billion users is a lot of clicks.

Remember those days when adsense was crazy on everyone's page. Somehow, Google's ad marketing works so well (and probably pretty expensive by now) that it just works. Plus, since everyone is moving to the Internet, ads are just a norm to do for businesses.

alraiah• 13 years ago

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Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

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