Paid clicks decline, bad times for Google

According to the specialists from Hitwise, paid ad clicks have declined during the past month. The company showed that 7.25 per cent of all search engine traffic during four weeks leading up to May 9 came from paid clicks, while the figure had made to 9.84 per cent in the same period of last year. With a 26 per cent drop, many might start to think Google is finally feeling the recession.

It should also be reminded that in February 2008, when specialists from comScore had released their report showing a 7% decline in Google's "paid click rate," Google shares on Wall Street had decreased nearly 10 per cent over the next two days. Then, even after comScore "clarified" its report saying the vanishing clicks were a part of Google's master plan to improve the "quality" of ads, the shares of the company still continued to shrink.

It can be assumed that regardless the first quarter outcomes of 17% increased against the last year presented by Google, Hitwise numbers might be pointing at a slightly different picture for second quarter of the year.