Google just announced its quarterly financial information, and its profit hit its highest ever (Associated Press. Does this mean that the advertising industry is making a comeback? Maybe, but maybe not. Although Google’s numbers were all good, they were at much lower rates of increase than before. Moreover, given that they increased market share, some of their gains came at the expense of their competitors – not at the addition of more advertising into the market. Moreover, some of whatever new advertising did come into the market came from other online and offline advertising dollars – companies are still shifting budgets to shorter term strategies such as Search Marketing vs. old media advertising.

But optimism is good. This might be another of several recent signs that the worst of the recession is behind us. There are still some rough roads ahead for marketers, but hopefully we’ll continue to see positive signs.

Domus is a full service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.