WebProNews

What do you do when things are good? Roll out a secondary offering, of course. :) Wow, GOOG shares are taking a real pounding as the market hears about this impending dilution. The company is now valued at "only" $77.5 billion.;)

At a ratio to earnings, that's not out of line. Looking at revenues, this valuation is rich any way you'd care to measure it.

I guess the big question is: by raising so much new cash, is Google signaling an intention to embark on a truly grand-scale initiative in one of the areas they've been studying? Will they make an acquisition that really makes people sit up and take notice? Or is this just prudent hedging, ensuring long-term stability, without actually knowing in advance what situations might crop up that might require it to choose between cash or stock in a given merger or acquisition scenario?

The latter is perfectly plausible, but aren't we overdue for a really big, bold announcement that will shake up the technology world?

Andrew Goodman is Principal of Page Zero Media, a marketing consultancy which focuses on maximizing clients' paid search marketing campaigns.

In 1999 Andrew co-founded Traffick.com, an acclaimed "guide to portals" which foresaw the rise of trends such as paid search and semantic analysis.