He added: “As we continue to focus on innovating in our core business of search, ads and apps, we also look forward to enhancing the experience of our users and expanding the reach of our advertisers and partners with new technologies and formats, particularly as our integration of DoubleClick gains momentum and creates new opportunities in display advertising and elsewhere.”  The company’s top-line earnings rose on a wave of advertising dollars shifting to the Web, robust search traffic and a tight control on expenses amid criticism in the last year that it had become too profligate in its hiring.  Google also reported that clicks on its search advertisements, on its own site and across the Web, increased approximately 19 percent over the second quarter of 2007 and decreased 1 percent from the first quarter of 2008.  Google’s earnings report comes at a time of flux in the Internet business. Its two primary rivals, Yahoo and Microsoft, continue to publicly tussle over a potential merger. In June, Google struck a 10-year deal with Yahoo to serve some ads alongside Yahoo searches, and that arrangement is now under intense regulatory scrutiny.  Microsoft and Yahoo are also both reportedly talking to Time Warner about buying its AOL unit. That could conceivably hurt Google: it provides the search results on AOL and in 2005 invested $1 billion in the company, buying a 5 percent stake.  The earnings report also suggests that Google continues to hunt for a meaningful second act. Other parts of its business, like YouTube and the display advertising company DoubleClick, which it acquired in March, contributed only incrementally to Google’s bottom line.  “Competition is getting more intense, and Google is still a one-trick pony with nearly 94 percent of revenue coming from search,” Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst at Collins Stewart, wrote in a research note before Google’s earnings announcement.  But Mr. Aggarwal also said that Google’s one trick — search advertising — was getting ever more lucrative, thanks to strong international growth in Europe and Asia, and an increasing adoption of search marketing by big brand advertisers.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page WT1 of the National edition with the headline: Google Earnings Are Below Forecasts, and Shares Fall. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
The search giant gave an uncharacteristic disappointment to investors on Thursday, failing to meet at least some of Wall Street’s expectations for its second-quarter performance.