Google's earnings more than double

Web search provider Google Inc., posting its first financial results as a public company, yesterday said its third-quarter earnings and revenues both more than doubled from a year ago on the strength of an online advertising boom that continues to gather steam.

Google's shares jumped $8.89, or 6.33 percent, to $149.38 in Nasdaq trading yesterday in anticipation of the earnings report, which was released after the market closed. In after-hours trading, Google's shares continued racing ahead, reaching a high of $162.15. The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., priced its stock at $85 a share on Aug. 19, raising $1.67 billion in an auction-style initial public offering that had riveted the attention of the investment community throughout the summer.

Because company executives have broken with technology industry practice by refusing to offer guidance about their financial outlook, investors had looked to yesterday's report to help them gauge the value of a stock that has behaved like a dot-com era highflier over the past two months while the overall market has been weak.

The results did not disappoint. Google's earnings of $52 million, or 19 cents a share, were up from $20.4 million, or 8 cents a share, in the July-to-September period last year. And without one-time charges to cover its stock-based compensation and the settlement of a patent dispute with rival Yahoo Inc., Google said it would have earned 70 cents a share. That beat the consensus estimate of 56 cents a share from securities analysts polled by the Thomson Financial research firm.

Google executives, in a conference call with analysts, said the company is continuing to ride the wave of Internet advertising, which it distributes next to its search results and next to content on third-party partner sites. ''Online advertising is becoming a larger and larger percentage of global advertising spending," noted Larry Page, Google cofounder and president for products. Google's own sites accounted for 51 percent of its advertising revenue for the three months ending Sept. 30, with its partner sites accounting for 48 percent.

The company reported overall third-quarter revenue of $805.9 million, up from $393.9 million for the same period a year ago.

While the company's top managers discussed a range of new initiatives, from the launch of a desktop search feature to the opening of a European headquarters in Dublin, they stopped short of unveiling the kind of integrated strategy some Google watchers were anticipating.

''Until such time as they know what the whole house is going to look like, they're not going to reveal the blueprint," suggested David M. Garrity, a technology analyst for Caris & Co. in New York, who said Google's valuation may be justified not simply by Internet advertising but by a larger computing strategy. ''Right now they're still in the process of expanding into their potential end point, which is replacing Microsoft. I think their intention is to take our computing experience and make it more Web-centric rather than personal computer-centric."

Google faces stiff competition from Microsoft and Yahoo, which have beefed up their search initiatives this year.

While noting the strength of Google's business, Scott Kessler, a Standard & Poor's equity analyst, said he was concerned about the run-up of its share price. ''A lot of people see that these shares are being bought regardless of valuation," he said. ''But once there's a chink in the armor, people will sell the shares without reservation."

Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.