Google showed modest growth during February in a closely watched report released on Wednesday on how search sites like Google get paid by advertisers. Web measurement firm comScore issued a monthly report on "paid clicks" -- a key measure of how Web searchers are converted into ad viewers -- that showed Google's paid click rate grew only 3.1 percent year-to-year in February, a sharp decline from roughly 40 percent growth six months ago. "You can't avoid the trend. Something that was humming along at 40 percent is now near zero: Something is going on there. Especially when the economy is getting a little twitchy," said RBC Capital analyst Ross Sandler.
However, one must also factor in Google's efforts in recent quarters to improve the effectiveness of advertising shown in the margins of its Web search services by paring back the number of ads per page and reduce inadvertent customer clicks. "It is not as bad as comScore data shows it but it's not as good as Wall Street expects it to be," Sandler said.
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