Weak ad revenue pulls Google down

Yesterday Google gave investors a double surprise. First, the company accidentally fired off its earnings announcement three hours ahead of schedule — while markets were still open. Then, those profits fell quite short of expectations.

The earnings report showed Google took a particular hit in ad revenue. Chris Low of FTN Financial says weak ad sales were likely a result of the weak economy. “It used to be that we’d see ad pages in newspapers down, but now it’s all online, and Google, of course is the biggest source of ad revenue on the Internet.”