Google Execs Talk About Paid Click "Shortfall"

These guys at Google need to come forward quicker to avoid this kind of thing.

But speaking at the Bear Stearns Media Conference in Florida, Tim
Armstrong, Google's president of North America advertising and commerce, said
that the recent slowing in paid clicks "was intentional on our part" and will
result in "a long-term benefit for our business."

That's because recent quality initiatives at the company have
resulted in fewer unintentional clicks and a higher number of "conversions," or
revenue generated by intentional clicks, according to Armstrong.

"Conversions actually go up for advertisers, which is positive, but
there are less clicks overall," he said.

So as many speculated they did this on purpose to provide a better value overall for advertisers. It wasn't some "economy-in-the-toilet and advertisers are running for the exits" type of thing after all. In any case I still think Google is a steal below its 52-week range and I'm going to double up on this thing before too long.