• Bloomberg News, Thursday, March 27, 2008 11 AM

No, comScore's Google paid click data in January was not an anomaly. According to the latest report from the Web measurement firm, February was just as bad, as Google's sponsored links rose just 3 percent to 515 million over a year earlier. And because the data doesn't take into account that we had an extra day in February this year, overall growth was probably flat--again.

So what gives? Analysts claim it's the economy: a tanking housing market, higher oil prices and slumping consumer confidence mean that people are shopping less online--and if they're shopping less online, they're clicking on fewer ads enticing them to buy stuff.

Meanwhile, the downward trend continues month-to-month, as ad clicks fell an additional 3 percent in February after falling 7.5 percent in January. All this leads to what should be another rocky day for Google in the stock market; the company's stock fell $14.52 to $443.67 in after-hours trading, once the report was released. Google declined to comment for the Bloomberg report.

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