The Recession didn't stop the Rise in Internet Advertising

Revenue generated by paid clicks increased across Google's network of sites during the fourth quarter of 2009.

In its latest earnings report, the search engine giant said that aggregate paid clicks - including those relating to adverts on Google's portals and those of its AdSense partners, rose by approximately 13 per cent over the three-month period when compared to the final three months of last year.  The rise was nine per cent on the figure from the third quarter of 2009 and, overall, Google saw its revenue grow 17 per cent year-on-year, a figure that may be welcomed by search engine optimisation firms that base their business on Google.

Chief executive officer Eric Schmidt stated that the firm "had a strong fourth quarter". "Given that the global economy is still in the early days of recovery, this was an extraordinary end to the year," he remarked, adding that the "resilience" of the company's business model has helped it continue to perform well in the tough economic climate.

The business, which was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University and is now the dominant force in the internet search engine market, generated over half (53 per cent) of its revenue from outside the US.