Google Inc posted strong fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday, beating Wall Street forecasts, as its Web search advertising business remained strong despite a bleak economy.
Net income for the fourth quarter fell to $382 million or $1.21 a diluted share, from $1.21 billion, or $3.79 a share, a year earlier due to impairment charges on its investments in Clearwire Corp and Time Warner Inc unit AOL.
Excluding one-time charges, profit rose to $5.10 a share, compared with Wall Street's target of $4.95 according to Reuters Estimates.
Revenue, including commissions paid to affiliated advertising sites, totaled $5.7 billion, up 18 percent from the year-earlier quarter, and up 3 percent from the third quarter. Both gains were in line with average Wall Street forecasts.
Paid clicks -- a measure of how often Google gets paid for advertisements alongside its Web search results -- rose 18 percent from the year-ago quarter and 10 percent from the third quarter.
Investors have been concerned that Google's paid search business would face keyword pricing deflationary pressures due to the worsening economic environment, but the company said search query growth was strong with revenues up in most verticals.
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