Summary Box: Appeal of Google’s ads grows in 2Q

Published July 20, 2012 2:50am ET



ADS CLICKING: Google’s second-quarter earnings rose 11 percent, thanks largely to a sharp increase in the number of times that Web surfers clicked on its moneymaking ads. The volume of revenue-producing clicks climbed by 42 percent from last year, the largest spike since Google Inc. began reporting the figure four years ago.

THE WEAK SPOT: The average price for Google’s search-driven ads dropped 16 percent from last year. That was the biggest decline so far during three consecutive quarters of year-over-year erosion in ad prices.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Google earned $2.8 billion on revenue of $12.2 billion.