Recession? What Recession?

Unbelievable. Despite a shell-shocked economy and slowdown in the growth of search advertising, Google announced yesterday that its third-quarter net income grew 26 percent, to $1.35 billion. The news broke Wall Street’s expectations and vindicated the company’s claim that Google would prosper even in tough times.

For the last few weeks, more and more analysts predicted that while Google’s ad revenue would continue to grow, the pace would slow considerably, and the company would finally come back to Earth and perform like any other firm. This, along with the general Nasdaq and Dow Jones jitters, forced Google’s stock price down to around $340 a share, far from its November high of $747. But once Google announced that its net revenue grew to $4.04 billion, the stock took a 10 percent jump in pre-market trading Friday, according to MarketWatch.

Bloomberg reports that although home and car loan advertisers stopped buying as many Google ads, the ad budgets of clothing and appliance sellers remained strong. In addition, the number of times users clicked on ads jumped 18 percent, reflecting a consumer base that is increasingly comfortable with shopping online. But what this really reflected what proof that Google’s claim to be able to thrive in both flush and lean years has been borne out. Google always said that its targeted advertisements more precisely matched buyers to sellers—and that even in economic downturns, when companies are cutting their promotions budgets, advertisers will still see Google as the most efficient and cost-effective way to sell their products.

Not everyone was as buoyed by the report; analyst Ross Sandler told the New York Times that the report merely reflected what had happened in the past, and the dramatic news of the last few weeks forecast an uncertain future for everyone, even Google. Stanford Group analyst Clayton Moran echoed those reservations to the Washington Post: “Uncertainty will still linger, and that, to some extent will keep a lid on its stock as investors are righty cautious.” But the company sure sounded pretty happy with the results. In fact, it announced a new push to expand its digital ad sector, making the former DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt the head of global display advertising.