Google shares fall below $500
Maybe a roller-coaster ride is just the distraction Disneyland-bound Googlers need to get their minds off the company's falling share price.
Google's shares closed Monday at $495.43, the first time they've closed below $500 in about six and a half months. The dip follows news that Google's two main competitors could possibly merge. It also comes as employees take a company trip to the Southern California amusement park.
Google's shares had been sailing to what seemed like never-ending heights, hitting a record high of $747 last November. However, they have lost 30 percent since trending downward late last year amid a larger market downturn, and have fallen by a third since their record high.
The recent shock to Google shares came on Thursday evening after the company announced fourth-quarter results that just missed Wall Street expectations. The shares got dinged again on Friday after Microsoft announced a $44.6 billion offer to buy Yahoo.
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor. 
takeover by MicroSoft is not a forgone conclusion.
pounced on so fast that even Microsoft's head would be
spinning. It would be so bad that anyone aligning themselves
with a proprietary search engine would be cut off. I think what is
more likely is that Microsoft will create revenue partners and
within that some sort of AJAX or Visual Studio extensions that
when placed into a page give more features to a search result.
Something that Google is not capable of doing at the moment.
This would serve the purpose of being able to provide a better
search experience through Microsoft while not stopping Google
from listing sites in their search engine. If Google will suffer
from this I am sure that it is years away from doing so.
Is Google going to be the new Alta Vista? It has happened before and it could happen again.
1-Revenue from Sponsored links when ?% of the Visitors do not know those are paid links. I've seen reports of up to 27%.
2-ClickFraud (?%)...
Google is by all means a pioneer in highly relevant search but if any brick + mortar would have made billions in large part because of #1 & #2, they would have been long gone with litigation.
It is up to GOOG to come up with second trick in a hurry before Visitors & Googlers bail.
- Microsoft falls to $30
- by drhowarddrfine February 4, 2008 7:52 PM PST
- The other half of the story. Microsoft has fallen 20% in four months to $30 from $38. Bigger story. The whole market has been falling for that long.
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