Google’s Q3 revenue rises 96% year-over-year to $1.6 billion

Revenue at Internet search market leader Google reached $1.58 billion for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, up 30% from the year-ago quarter, as net income rose 11% to $381 million from $343 million, Google said today. Q3 revenues grew 14% over the prior quarter, due to continued expansion of the company’s global advertiser base and partner network as well as to product improvements, Google said.

"Although this is typically a slower season for Internet properties, we had another exceptional quarter," said Eric Schmidt, Google chief executive officer. "Our focus on end users and on quality of information and advertising worldwide continues to work extremely well. We are very pleased with how well this is working at scale."

Google’s revenue has continued to shift from its network revenue, or revenue generated through its AdSense paid search programs on partner sites, to revenue generated on Google-owned sites, the company said. Q3 revenue from Google-owned sites reached $885 million, or 56% of total revenue, while network revenue was $675 million, or 43% of total revenue.

The portion of revenues shared with Google’s partners, which Google defines as traffic acquisition costs, was $530 million, up from $494 million in the prior quarter, Google said.

International revenues accounted for 39% of total revenue, compared to 35% a year ago, Google said.

Google led all search engines with a 45% market share in September, followed by Yahoo Search, 23.3%; MSN Search, 11.7%; AOL Search, 7.8%; and Ask Jeeves, 2.5%, according to the MegaView Search report from Nielsen/NetRatings.