Mountain View, California-based Google had stronger than expected growth during April in the so-called paid  clicks measurement of online search advertising success, with an increase of 19.6 percent from a year prior, according to a new report from Web traffic analysis company comScore. The April growth for Google paid clicks topped analyst expectations in a measurement of how well the search leader converted online search ads to revenue, significantly bettering a modest 2.7 percent increase during March and 3.1 percent in February, according to the report seen by Wall Street analysts. Yahoo and Microsoft Paid Clicks Fell During April Reston, Virginia-based comScore released its private April paid click report Wednesday to clients including Wall Street analysts, pleasing United States investors who saw Google's better than expected growth in the  area as a possible sign the search giant is continuing to perform well despite a downturn in the economy. Google's online search engine advertising rivals Yahoo and Microsoft both experienced paid click losses during April according to the comScore report, when Yahoo saw a drop of 4.4 percent over the same month one year earlier, and Microsoft saw a falloff of 9 percent. Strong Growth May Be A Sign Google Initiative Is Working Search engine companies bring in revenue from paid clicks, and comScore's monthly report is an attempt to  measure how many times consumers shopping online click on the ads accompanying search results. A large majority of Google's 2007 $16.6 billion ad sale revenue came from sales of the small text-based ads shown alongside search results and on its ad network. The strong April paid click growth figures from comScore are likely to help ease Wall Street concerns that Google has become more susceptible to the economic downturn, concerns which were eased somewhat in April when the company released first quarter earnings that exceeded forecasts with first quarter gross revenue of $5.19 billion, a 42 percent increase over the same quarter during 2007. Reports from comScore earlier this year showed a slowdown in paid click growth at Google, with a 1.8 percent first quarter growth rate over figures from the previous year. Google Paid Click Advertising Growth Higher Than Expected During April Google said that the weaker growth shown earlier in the year was due largely to steps it put in place to reduce accidental clicks on Web ads, such as making certain ads smaller, and initiatives the firm has taken to remove certain poorly  performing advertisers. Data included in the comScore paid click report is only a representational sample of all paid clicks coming from users clicking on ads from search engine firms, and tracks only U.S. usage, causing some analysts to use the monthly report as but one tool for gauging the health of firms such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Google was the top Web destination among United States visitors during April, surpassing Yahoo for the first time, according to unique monthly visitor data released earlier this month by comScore, recording a 67.9 percent share of the overall U.S. search market. Related Links:
| 
