Comments on: Google first-quarter profit rises almost 70 percent

Results beat Wall Street expectations as the company turns search market share gains into even more revenue from paid search advertising.

[n3td3v]

GOOG

I don't think anyone has a bad word to say about Google.

Yahoo however is a corporation in crisis, mostly because of Google.

You can decide if thats a good thing or a bad thing.

I prefer Google.

[jazyfko]

Congrats Google!

Good for them! Congratulations. They did a great job with mostly everything they do. They deserve it.

[rmiecznik]

Impossible business plan ?

That's what Steve Ballmer said, they wish they had what Google
has.

[BigGuns149]

Where are all the naysayers?

I remember several years ago how everyone was saying that Google is overvalued, but where have all those people gone now? Google's P/E ratio is down below 50 and their EPS is about 10. Profit is still growing by double digit figures every quarter and profit growth over a one year period is 70% compared to the same quarter a year ago. Google's growth is slowing, but 70% annual profit growth isn't sustainable forever.

At some point you the FTC won't allow them to buy into other companies in their sector. (There are already concerns for the Doubleclick deal) Unless you can decimate another competitors' market share or cause the internet advertising market to grow faster than it has been Google's profit growth will eventually settle to a more reasonable 10%-20%.

All things considered Google's future still looks brighter than Microsoft's. If not for dividends I think most people would have sold their Microsoft stock years ago. Despite billions spent in marketing and R&D Microsoft has done little to chip away Google's dominance. If they did we would be reading stories about it. The problem is that Microsoft can't leverage their OS to dominate this market like they can with software products. I hope all of the Google critics from 2-3 years ago will admit they were wrong. Vista hasn't done anything to Google. Yahoo's Panama hasn't done anything to Google. Microsoft's Live search is barely used by anyone outside of Redmond who hasn't been paid to use it. Just because GOOG isn't growing like crazy anymore doesn't mean that Google doesn't have long term potential.

[a85]

A P/E of 48 is bad and so is market domination

I can't believe you are boasting about a P/E of 48 (almost 49 in afterhours trading). Furthermore, I don't know how you calculated that growth will plateau at 10-20%. You clearly don't know what you are talking about.

To everyone else who thinks that Google dominating search is a good thing, I completely disagree. Just as having Microsoft dominate the OS market isn't necessarily beneficial for the consumer, Google controlling the search market will stifle competition and lead to a monotonous search market. Competition is good for consumers and for some reason I think people are failing to remember this when it comes to Google.

[t8]

Nice one!

Just proves that you don't have to be evil to make billions.

[wylbur]

well, I'll nay say

My own consumer goods company recently stopped using
Google ads. Our problem was the %0.5 conversion ratio on a
very expensive click through. We can get a conversion ratio ten
times that from Yahoo and the click throughs for our keywords
cost about half as much there. I tend to think Google's opaque,
self-controlled, unaudited market is designed to create prices
that favor google and ad-hosts over advertisers. I also wonder if
Google attracts more of the type of users who put shameless
words like "Click through ads to support our content, " on their
web pages.

My secondary concern as a user is the "Google Ecosystem" which
is more and more becoming pages full of advertising on one
subject that fill up the first page of search results. (Ross Perot
has a company devoted to doing this, supposed to be pulling
over $100M/year earnings which means Google is making at
least $200M/year off the scheme-- I assume others are doing
the same, all that makes one wonder about the quality of
Googles earnings, we are not going to keep using Google for
searches if all we get is pages of pure advertising without
meaningful content).

Otherwise, my big concerns are the liability issues from
copyrighted content (Particularly given the last Australian court
judgement on the issue and that Australian courts take the same
expansive views of jurisdiction that American courts do), the
failure to monetize anything other than search, and a lack of
traction outside the search business.