In a time of economic distress, Google still managed to increase it’s revenue 18% from the previous year’s Q4, according to ClickZ’s, Zachary Rodgers.

The article mentions that CPC’s keep increasing and this is a sign that people are still clicking on Sponsored Links. This is not surprise to anyone that works in Search Engine Marketing (SEM). We have seen increasing prices for clicks especially on Google. We have yet to see any CPC’s decrease without campaign optimizations in order to adhere to best practices on increasing quality scores.

In fact, every day we have seen that we have been having to increase our bids to maintain results. The downside is that this affords advertisers even less clicks.

Of of Google’s SVP’s was quoted as saying, “If a recession caused less commerce to take place, that would adversely impact us and you’d see CPCs go down,