Shares in Google closed up more than 7% on Wednesday following the firm's announcement of a huge rise in profits. The world's most popular internet search engine saw its stock climb as high as $216.80 during the day before pulling back to finish at $205.96.
This closing price saw Google overtake eBay as the biggest internet firm in terms of stock market value.
Google made profits of $204.1m (�108m) in the three months to 31 December.
Shares surge
The results were way ahead of market expectations, and compare with the $27.3m profits the company made in the same period a year earlier.
 | US SEARCH SHARE Google - 34.7% Yahoo! - 31.9% MSN - 16.3% Time Warner - 9.4% Others - 7.7% Source: comScore |
Total turnover for the quarter jumped to $1.03bn from $512.2m, again beating analysts' predictions.
When Google first floated back in August, its shares debuted at $85.
Based on its Thursday share price, Google now has a stock market value of about $56bn, compared with an estimated $52bn market capitalisation for eBay.
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