By Barry Collins
Posted on 18 Oct 2012 at 18:02
The company's share price plunged from almost $760 to $687 before trading was suspended at the time of publication.
The sell-off came after the company reported below-par earnings ahead of schedule. The Securities & Exchange Commission filing was obviously posted in error, with a gap left for a quote from CEO Larry Page.
Google recorded a third-quarter profit of $2.18 billion, down from $2.73 billion for the same quarter in 2011.
Motorola is also becoming a drag on Google's results. The handset maker contributed $2.58 billion in revenue, but recorded an operating loss of $527 million - accounting for much of the difference between this and last year's profits.
There was more bad news in Google's core advertising business
,
with the average cost per click that advertisers paid to the company
falling by 15%, largely because of the lower premiums attached to mobile
advertising.However, the number of paid clicks increased by 33% year-on-year.
