By Ari Levy March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., the most-popular Internet search engine, saw slower growth in the number of clicks on text advertisements, adding to concern that a sputtering economy is hurting sales. Clicks on Google's sponsored links -- four-line ads that mostly run next to search results -- rose 3 percent to 515 million in February from a year earlier, researcher ComScore Inc. said yesterday. In January, Google had no growth, after a 25 percent increase in the fourth quarter. The data may stoke investors' concerns that a stumbling housing market, higher oil prices and a possible recession will curb online shopping, said Stanford Group Co. analyst Clayton Moran, who rates the stock ``hold.'' Google dropped to a nine- month low in Nasdaq trading after ComScore's report last month. ``The numbers are soft again,'' said Moran, who is in Boca Raton, Florida. ``We think the slowing of growth is due to the economy.'' Ad clicks fell 3 percent in February from the previous month, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore said. In January, clicks fell 7.5 percent to 532 million from the previous month. Google, based in Mountain View, California, dropped $14.52, or 3.2 percent, to $443.67 in extended trading after the report yesterday. The stock, down 34 percent this year, rose $7.41 to $458.19 in regular Nasdaq trading. Google spokesman Brandon McCormick declined to comment. Fewer Ads Google, which gets almost all of its $16.6 billion in annual sales from online ads, has upgraded its systems to eliminate promotions that aren't relevant to searches, product manager Nick Fox said last month. That makes people more likely to click on ads even though a fewer number are shown on users' screens, he said in a Feb. 28 interview. ComScore, in a blog posting the following day, said eliminating less-relevant ads will benefit Google. ``In the long run, this should increase relevancy and therefore make it an even more efficient ad format, which would raise prices,'' Moran said. ``In the short term, it looks like it's having a negative impact.'' In January, Google reported fourth-quarter profit and revenue that missed analysts' estimates. The company also said it failed to make as much headway as expected selling ads on social- networking sites such as News Corp.'s MySpace. --Editor: Jonathan Thaw, Nick Turner
When you read the blog response that Comscore made, it's clear that they were basically backpedalling and retracting what they had announced.....