I listened in on Google's earnings call yesterday, and at one point an analyst what changes, if any, occured in Q3 in terms of ad coverage and CPCs. In answering the CPC part of the question, the G exec said that search CPC data for Q3 was misleading because of changes in the mix of AdWords (search) vs AdSense (contextual) revenues.

I'm not sure what to make of that, but wonder if it meant that CPC growth was slightly negative in the quarter because contextual clicks made up a bigger % of G's total revenues in Q3 than in Q2.

Incidentally, I also saw some data in a blog post by Efficient Frontier that showed Google Content spending (as a % of overall G spending) was up 82.8% YoY = much more than G Search.

Those two things together are making me think that Google's Content business is growing a lot faster than search, and that it might be correct to say that Content 'saved' Google this quarter.

Anyone care to comment?