After reading some interesting articles on Google’s 3rd quarter performance, I had to ask: Is Google Recession Proof ?
Background: So Google this week announced better than expected results for 2008 3rd quarter, which included the rough September on Wall Street. I will admit that I do not think that the full blunt of what happened on Wall Street has hit businesses that advertise online, but it is interesting.
You can view the entire press release here: Google Third Quarter 2008 Results
Predictions from Google executives state that PPC (pay-per-click) advertising would do better in a downturn that other forms of advertising.
Why is this? According to Eric Schmidt, advertisers, in general, continued to spend on search engine advertising, probably because it is more targeted to likely customers and measurable than other forms of advertising.
Is this good news for online advertisers? Maybe. Although these results are for 3rd quarter, I think the 4th quarter results will be much more telling. it will give us 3 full months of Google results after the financial roller coaster on Wall Street in September. As far as trends go for the Internet, look at Google’s 4th quarter results in January 2009. Then we can better answer the question, “Is Google Recession Proof?”.
