I think that the Panda effect will follow later. Investors don't realize yet that Google has been working an entire year on something that didn't improve search results.

The press conference was very hostile by the way, Goog just didn't impress.

This is the beginning of the end for Goog stock, IMO. There's no way they can grow enough to justify a $200 Billion market cap. Not with all that competition and changing technology.

Start tweaking the Serps again google, make us use Adwords :). Now with Panda and Adsense being seen as a suspect many smart webmasters will dump Adsense, just to be safe. $100 a month here and $1200 there...

It was reported that Larry Page sold off 55,556 shares. He must have seen the incoming revenue slip after Panda.

Well it isn't the end, but Google is likely peaking. So many products but so few that are profitable.

Yeah, double-digit income growth is a real problem for Google. I'd hate to have to stuggle by on that, especially when growth in the rest of the economy is so strong.

Share price drop in this case is a function of missed expecation- its speculators getting it wrong, not a reflection of underlying weakness in Google.

Share price drop in this case is a function of missed expecation- its speculators getting it wrong, not a reflection of underlying weakness in Google.

Let's leave aside the fact that advertising, entertainment and commerce is moving online and if Google doesn't grab 'enough' of a share, then they have a weakness.

When 'speculators,' whose money Google employees and founders took so fast, realize what you said, they will sell the stock. And sell some more and more. Once the stock isn't moving up, Google will have a very hard time to attract or keep the brightest minds in the field, it's that simple. Or they will have to pay them in cash, instead of stock options like it did to some this year.

Google is [finance.yahoo.com...] 6.5% down at this moment, or some $37.50 a share.

Lastly, you cannot compare e tech company to Kraft or a public utility when it comes to growth.

I'd hate to have to stuggle by on that, especially when growth in the rest of the economy is so strong.

Shaddows, where do you see this strong grouth?

I think Shaddows forgot to bold the irony tags around

especially when growth in the rest of the economy is so strong.

;-)

Agreed, lots of folks would love to have G's growth "problems".or even half of their "growth problems".

Sorry, was being facetious with that first line. Google's double-digit growth against a backdrop of economic stagnation rather implies it is doing fine as a company.

The fact that double-digit growth caused a share-price fall indicated that speculators betting on Google's performance got it wrong. This is pretty immaterial to Google as a company, beyond employee-shareholders.

As walkman points out, those paid in shares will be rather upset. But I still stand by the fact this is NOT a reflection of Google's decline, just a decline in expectations.

Poor babies, their stock is down close to 7% at the time of this posting. Oh well, my Adsense earnings, etc are down +/- 50% since the Panda (Farmer) tsunami and the recent Layer 2 tsunami.

'Nuf said.

If you read into the detail, it's the costs that are rising spectacularly. This is the thing that is making investors look again, especially when the results aren't mega spectacular.

If that was the avarage private business the owners would be delighted with the growth, but don't have 'fat and hungy' investors to answer to. The investors want mega spectacular, or the shares lose their shine.

If you read into the detail, it's the costs that are rising spectacularly. This is the thing that is making investors look again, especially when the results aren't mega spectacular.

If that was the avarage private business the owners would be delighted with the growth, but don't have 'fat and hungy' investors to answer to. The investors want mega spectacular, or the shares lose their shine.

This is true.. I also think they're generally overvalued period. Which beyond investor reaction to costs was an invevitable fluctuation as well.

Their share price chart kinda looks like my web stats :)

"Their share price chart kinda looks like my web stats happy!"

I wish I was down just 7-8%.

But Google doesn't look at all: Bing is gaining on search and the hottest things aren't Google: Facebook, Twitter, Groupon (as stupid as it may sound) and Amazon is about to start their own advertising network. Google has lost it's luster, it's that simple

Google is fine, they just need to fire a couple of idiots here and there, rid of some really bad acquisitions and idiotic in-house created distractions, and most importantly improve their core traffic driving business; search. Looks a bit like Yahoo, doesn't it?

So adsense publishers made 4 billion dollars last quarter, kool.

It would be so awesome if out of the blue Apple, Twitter, or Facebook said "Oh by the way, this is our new search engine -------.com." BOOM! -10% Google US search market share loss in one day. That is the sort of thing that I day dream about.

I will forever be cheering on the downfall and demise of Google "only do pure evil". They are actually attempting to turn their search results into a 10 channel television set. "On the Wikipedia channel from 10:00pm - 10:01pm PST we'll teach you the meaning of the term Toast". I'd love to see the size of Wikipedia's traffic drop the day that they stopped being foisted on to the world via Google. That garbage heap of a website would be lucky to retain 5% of it's current traffic volume (it would probably be 2% for About.com and eHow).

When I hear Sergey Brin say things like "Isn’t knowledge always good, and certainly always better than ignorance?" I throw up in my mouth. These guys are more anti-information than Joseph Stalin was.

Cheers to the -8.26% GOOG stock collapse today. I even picked up that info on Bing.com. I know I'll sleep like a baby tonight.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Google stock looks like a pyramid scheme to me.

The only way investors can make money out of the stock is by share price gains. The company does not pay any dividends. The dual-class stock structure removes any chance for common share holders ("Class A") to change this (as "Class B" votes, owned by the founders and early investors, count ten times more) or anything else in terms of strategy or products. This makes looking at earnings per share a cruel joke, because the investors do NOT get a share of the earnings!

So how, exactly, is a Google stock holder going to make money then? ONLY by buying low and selling high. Stock owners do not control the company or the dividends, and they can ONLY hope that the stock will grow. Once the market turns bearish however, there basically is no reason to keep the stock at all.

GOOG is probably a bubble waiting to burst. (Until now, they could manage to keep the stock up due to positive outlook. Their growth promises were key, but market reality makes them weaker by the day. The dismissal of Schmidt was the first sign things are going badly wrong at Google.)

The market analysts I've read are focused on Google's spending, not on changes in the search results from Panda.

Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney this morning cut his rating on shares of Google (GOOG) to Hold from Buy after the company slightly missed Q1 EPS estimates last night, as operating expense growth surged 45%, outpacing the 29% rise in net revenue.

[blogs.barrons.com...]

It was reported that Larry Page sold off 55,556 shares. He must have seen the incoming revenue slip after Panda.

Of course this cannot be true unless you're accusing him of committing a crime.

It takes less than a minute to see his trading activity, I'm note sure why anyone would accuse him of an insider trading crime. In addition, revenues didn't slip at all. In fact they were way up, earnings per share missed estimates by 0.2%.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Google stock looks like a pyramid scheme to me.

The only way investors can make money out of the stock is by share price gains. The company does not pay any dividends.

You realize this company has about $50B in cash right? They also expected to earn about $40 per share this year. If more companies in the US had these problems, we'd all be rich.

BTW - Microsoft didn't pay dividends for years either. Oh yeah, and Apple doesn't pay dividends either.