• Bloomberg, Wednesday, October 3, 2007 10:45 AM

Unrealistic valuations in the blogosphere haven't hurt Google shares in early morning trading on Wednesday, which continue their upward trajectory towards $600 per share. Reaching that milestone would be in line with Wall Street's thinking, as 33 of 36 analysts recommended buying Google shares.

However, price forecasts indicate that Google's bull run should stop around $625--20 of 28 analysts with estimates pegged its price below that mark over the next 12 months. Google's market value is currently more than $180 billion, third among U.S. technology companies, behind Microsoft and Cisco Systems. It has the sixth-highest stock price in the U.S.

"Google is still dominating" Web advertising, said Piper Jaffray & Co. Web analysts in an Oct. 1 report. Its sales growth in its core business has been 70% in each of the last three years, and figures to continue its remarkable growth, boosted by the introduction of display and rich media ads to its search engine. EMarketer believes that Web advertising will fall somewhere in the $21 billion range this year and more than double by 2011--Web search is expected to account for 40% of that.

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