Don't Celebrate Google's Demise Yet

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Everybody loves a good celebration, especially if the party is about underdogs taking a bite out of the big, bad top dog. But sometimes the confetti comes down a bit too fast.

Last week, comScore told us that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) was losing its paid-click mojo. Mr. Market took the unit drop at face value and has put an 8% hurting on the search giant's share price since the report was announced over a week ago. Now, comScore is back to say sorry and that its data might not warrant the $12 billion haircut off of Google's market cap.

The published data neither supports nor disproves the idea that Google lost market share or revenue, comScore said. It makes sense if you remember the latest earnings call, where CFO George Reyes noted an improvement in ad quality to AdSense that happened to lower the click volume as well. If there really are fewer hits, but they pay better on average, the company could still come out ahead -- with happier customers on both sides of the marketing message.

I think that many investors stared themselves blind on a traditional key metric last week and didn't notice that it's just one component in the final income brew. Lower on the left side, higher on the right -- and the middle could go anywhere, depending on the magnitude of the other moves.

Put down the streamers, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT). Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) can mix the spiked punch later. I'm not sure you even need to invite WPP's (Nasdaq: WPPGY) 24/7 Real Media to the party, because there might not be one. Wait for Google's next earnings report if you actually want the facts.

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