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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2004

OR

Commission file number: 000-50726

Google Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

1600 Amphitheatre Parkway

Mountain View, CA 94043

(Address of principal executive offices)

(650) 623-4000

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

None

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

Class A Common Stock, $0.001 par value

Class B Common Stock, $0.001 par value

(Title of class)

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  x    No  ¨

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of the registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an accelerated filer (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act.)    Yes  ¨    No  x

At December 31, 2004, the last business day of the Registrant’s most recently completed fiscal quarter, there were 95,542,010 shares of Registrant’s Class A common stock and 178,980,030 shares of Registrant’s Class B common stock outstanding, and the aggregate market value of such shares held by non-affiliates of the Registrant (based upon the closing sale price of such shares on The Nasdaq National Market on December 31, 2004) was approximately $27,286,463,824. Shares of Registrant’s Class A common stock and Class B common stock held by each executive officer and director and by each entity or person that, to the Registrant’s knowledge, owned 5% or more of Registrant’s outstanding common stock as of December 31, 2004 have been excluded in that such persons may be deemed to be affiliates of the Registrant. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes.

At March 28, 2005, there were 114,754,458 shares of Registrant’s Class A common stock outstanding and 162,594,769 shares of Registrant’s Class B common stock outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the registrant’s Proxy Statement for the 2005 Annual Meeting of Stockholders are incorporated herein by reference in Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K to the extent stated herein.

Table of Contents

Form 10-K

For the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2004

INDEX

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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PART I

ITEM 1.    BUSINESS

Overview

Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people connect with information. Our innovations in web search and advertising have made our web site a top Internet destination and our brand one of the most recognized in the world. We maintain the world’s largest online index of web sites and other content, and we make this information freely available to anyone with an Internet connection. Our automated search technology helps people obtain nearly instant access to relevant information from our vast online index.

We generate revenue by delivering relevant, cost-effective online advertising. Businesses use our AdWords program to promote their products and services with targeted advertising. In addition, the thousands of third-party web sites that comprise our Google Network use our Google AdSense program to deliver relevant ads that generate revenue and enhance the user experience.

Our Mission

Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. We believe that the most effective, and ultimately the most profitable, way to accomplish our mission is to put the needs of our users first. We have found that offering a high-quality user experience leads to increased traffic and strong word-of-mouth promotion. Our dedication to putting users first is reflected in three key commitments we have made to our users:

We believe that our user focus is the foundation of our success to date. We also believe that this focus is critical for the creation of long-term value. We do not intend to compromise our user focus for short-term economic gain.

How We Provide Value to Users, Advertisers and Web Sites

Our Users

We serve our users by developing products that enable people to more quickly and easily find, create and organize information. We place a premium on products that matter to many people and have the potential to improve their lives, especially in areas in which our expertise enables us to excel.

Search is one such area. People use search frequently and the results are often of great importance to them. For example, people search for information on medical conditions, purchase decisions, technical questions, long-lost friends and other topics about which they care a great deal. Delivering quality search results requires significant computing power, advanced software and complex processes—areas in which we have expertise and a high level of focus.

Communication is another such area. People increasingly rely on the Internet to communicate with each other. Gmail, our new email service (available in a limited test), offers a gigabyte of free storage for each user, along with email search capabilities and relevant advertising. Delivering an improved user experience in Gmail has similar computing and software requirements as our search service.

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Some of the key benefits we offer to users include:

Relevant and Useful Information. Our technologies sort through a vast and growing amount of information to deliver relevant and useful search results in response to user queries. This is an area of continual development for us. When we started the company six years ago, our web index contained approximately 30 million documents. We now index more than 8 billion web pages, or more than 250 times as much information. We are also constantly developing new functionality. We’ve made recent enhancements to our local search offering, which now includes Google Maps and we’ve also enhanced Google Desktop Search, which now supports additional file formats and browser and email clients. In addition, we also provide convenient links to specialized information, such as weather and movie information.

Objectivity. We believe it is very important that the results users get from Google are produced with only their interests in mind. We do not accept money for search result ranking or inclusion. We do accept fees for advertising, but it does not influence how we generate our search results. The advertising is clearly marked and separated. This is similar to a newspaper, where the articles are independent of the advertising. Some of our competitors charge web sites for inclusion in their indices or for more frequent updating of pages. Inclusion and frequent updating in our index are open to all sites free of charge. We apply these principles to each of our products and services. We believe it is important for users to have access to the best available information and research, not just the information that someone pays for them to see.

Global Access. We strive to provide Google to everyone in the world. Users from around the world visit our destination sites at Google.com and our 112 other international domains, such as Google.de, Google.fr, Google.co.uk, Google.co.jp and Google.ca. The Google interface is available in more than 100 languages. Through Google News, we offer an automated collection of frequently updated news stories tailored to 22 international audiences. We also offer automatic translation of content between various languages. We provide localized versions of Google in many developing countries. Although we do not currently recover our costs in these countries, we believe providing our products and services is an important social good and a valuable long-term business investment.

Ease of Use. We have always believed that the most useful and powerful search technology hides its complexity from users and provides them with a simple, intuitive way to get the information they want. We have devoted significant efforts to create a streamlined and easy-to-use interface based on a clean search box set prominently on a page free of commercial clutter. We have also created many features that enhance the user experience. Our products present these features when we believe they will be most useful, rather than promoting them unnecessarily. For example, Google WebSearch offers maps when a search appears to be for a geographic location.

Pertinent, Useful Commercial Information. The search for information often involves an interest in commercial information—researching a purchase, comparing products and services or actively shopping. We help people find commercial information through our search services and advertising products. Among our search services, we offer Froogle, a search engine for finding products for sale online. We also present advertisements that are relevant to the information people seek. To ensure we display only the most relevant commercial information, our technology automatically rewards ads that users prefer and removes ads that users do not find helpful.

Our Advertisers

As more people spend additional time and money online, advertisers are increasingly turning to the Internet to market their products and services to consumers. For these advertisers, we offer Google AdWords, an auction-based advertising program that enables them to deliver relevant ads targeted to search results or web content. Our AdWords program provides advertisers with a cost-effective way to deliver ads to customers across Google sites and through the Google Network. The advertisers using AdWords range from small businesses targeting local customers to many of the world’s largest global enterprises.

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The AdWords program offers advertisers the following benefits:

Effective Return on Investment. Many advertising dollars are spent delivering messages in an untargeted fashion and payment for these advertisements is not tied to performance. With Google AdWords, businesses can achieve greater cost-effectiveness with their marketing budgets for two reasons—AdWords shows ads only to people seeking information related to what the advertisers are selling, and advertisers choose how much they pay when a user clicks on their ad (though they are subject to a minimum price per click). Because we offer a simple ad format, advertisers can avoid incurring significant design, copywriting or other production costs associated with creating ads. As a result, even small advertisers find AdWords cost-effective for connecting with potential customers. In addition, advertisers can easily create many different ads, increasing the likelihood that an ad is exactly suited to a user’s search. Users can find advertisements for exactly what they are seeking, and advertisers can find users who want exactly what they are offering. When the interests of users and advertisers align, both are well served.

Access to the Google Network. We serve AdWords ads to the thousands of third-party web sites that make up the Google Network. As a result, advertisers that use our AdWords program can target users on our sites and on search and content sites across the web. This gives advertisers increased exposure to people who are likely to be interested in their offerings. The Google Network significantly enhances our ability to attract interested users.

Precise Campaign Control. Google AdWords gives advertisers hands-on control over most elements of their ad campaigns. Advertisers can specify the relevant search or content topics for each of their ads. Advertisers can also manage expenditures by setting a maximum daily budget and determining how much they are willing to pay whenever a user clicks on an ad. Our online tracking tools and reports give advertisers timely updates on how well their campaigns are performing and enable them to make changes or refinements quickly. Advertisers can also target their campaigns by city, country, regional area or language.

Global Support. We provide customer service to our advertiser base through our global support organization as well as through field sales offices in 14 countries. AdWords is available on a self-service basis with email support. Advertisers with more extensive needs and budgets can request strategic support services, which include an account team of experienced professionals to help them set up, manage and optimize their campaigns.

Web Sites

Google indexes a huge amount of information in order to provide relevant results to our users. Our users do searches and are directed to relevant web sites. Google provides a significant amount of traffic to web sites with which we have no business relationship. Many web sites are able to generate revenue from that traffic, but others have difficulty doing so. We are enthusiastic about helping sites make money and thereby facilitating the creation of better content to search. If there is better content on the web, people are likely to do more searches, and we expect that will be good for our business and for users. To address this opportunity, we created Google AdSense. Our Google AdSense program enables the web sites—large and small—that make up the Google Network to deliver AdWords ads that are relevant to the search results or content on their pages. We share most of the revenue generated from ads shown by a member of the Google Network with that member—creating an additional revenue stream for them. Web sites can also license our Google WebSearch product to offer the Google search experience to their users. The key benefits we offer to web sites in the Google Network include:

Access to Advertisers. Many small web site companies do not have the time or resources to develop effective programs for generating revenue from online advertising. Even larger sites, with dedicated sales teams, may find it difficult to generate revenue from pages with specialized content. We believe that Google AdSense enables Google Network members to generate revenue from their sites more effectively and efficiently. Google AdSense promotes effective revenue generation by providing Google Network members immediate access to Google’s base of advertisers and their broad collection of ads. As soon as a web site joins the Google Network, our

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technology automatically begins delivering ads for posting on the member’s web site. The automated nature of our advertising programs promotes efficient revenue generation. Our online registration systems enable web sites to easily join the Google Network and our ad serving technology allows automated delivery of ads for posting on the member’s site. The Google Network member determines the placement of the ads on its web site and controls and directs the nature of ad content.

Improved User Satisfaction. In their quest for revenue, many Internet companies have cluttered their web sites with intrusive or untargeted advertising that may distract or confuse users and may undermine users’ ability to find the information they want. Some web sites have adopted practices we consider to be abusive, including pop-up ads or ads that take over web pages. We believe these tactics can cause dissatisfaction with Internet advertising and reduce use of the Internet overall. Our AdSense program extends our commitment to improving the overall web experience for users by enabling web sites to display AdWords ads in a fashion that we believe people find useful rather than disruptive.

Products and Services

Our product development philosophy is centered on rapid and continuous innovation, with frequent releases of early stage products that we seek to improve with every iteration. We often make products available early in their development stages by posting them on Google Labs, at test locations online or directly on Google.com. If our users find a product useful, we promote it to “beta” status for additional testing. Our beta testing periods often last a year or more. Once we are satisfied that a product is of high quality and utility, we remove the beta label and make it a core Google product. Our current principal products and services are described below.

Google.com

We are focused on building products and services that benefit our users and enable them to find relevant information quickly and easily. We offer, free of charge, all of the following services at Google.com and many of them at our international sites.

Google WebSearch. In addition to providing easy access to more than 8 billion web pages, we have integrated special features into Google WebSearch to help people find exactly what they are looking for on the web. The Google.com search experience also includes:

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Google Image Search. Google Image Search is our searchable index of more than 1.1 billion images found across the web. To extend the usefulness of Google Image Search, we offer advanced features, such as searching by image size, format and coloration and restricting searches to specific web sites or domains.

Google News. Google News gathers information from nearly 10,000 news sources worldwide and presents news stories in a searchable format within minutes of their publication on the web. The leading stories are presented as headlines on the Google News home page. These headlines are selected for display entirely by a computer algorithm, without regard to political viewpoint or ideology. Google News uses an automated process to pull together related headlines, which enables people to see many different viewpoints on the same story. Because topics are updated continuously throughout the day, people generally see new stories each time they check Google News. We currently provide our Google News service tailored to 22 international audiences.

Google Toolbar. The Google Toolbar makes our search technology constantly and easily available as people browse the web. The Google Toolbar is available as a free, fast download and can improve people’s web experience through several innovative features, including:

Froogle. Froogle enables people to easily find products for sale online. By focusing entirely on product search, Froogle applies the power of our search technology to a very specific task—locating stores that sell the items users seek and pointing them directly to the web sites where they can shop. Froogle users can sort results by price, specify a desired price range and view product photos. Froogle accepts data feeds directly from merchants to ensure that product information is up-to-date and accurate. Most online merchants are also automatically included in Froogle’s index of shopping sites. Because we do not charge merchants for inclusion in Froogle, our users can browse product categories or conduct product searches with confidence that the results we provide are relevant and unbiased. As with many of our products, Froogle displays relevant advertising separately from search results.

Google Groups. The original Google Groups enabled easy participation in Internet discussion groups by providing users with tools to search, read and browse these groups and to post messages of their own. Google

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Groups contains more than 1 billion messages from Usenet Internet discussion groups dating back to 1981. The discussions in these groups cover a broad range of discourse and provide a comprehensive look at evolving viewpoints, debate and advice on many subjects. The new Google Groups adds in the ability to create your own groups for you and your friends and an improved user interface.

Google Mobile. Google Mobile offers people the ability to search and view both the “mobile web,” consisting of pages created specifically for wireless devices, and the entire Google index of more than 8 billion web pages. Google Mobile works on devices that support WAP, WAP 2.0, i-mode or j-sky mobile Internet protocols. In addition, users can access a variety of information using Google SMS by typing a query to the Google shortcode. Google Mobile is available through many wireless and mobile phone services worldwide.

Google Local. Google Local enables users to find relevant local businesses near a city, postal code, or specific address. This service combines Yellow Page listings with information found on web pages, and plots their locations on interactive maps.

Google Print. Google Print brings information online that had previously not been available to web searchers. Under this program, we enable a number of publishers to host their content and show their publications at the top of our search results. On Google Print pages, we provide links to book sellers that may offer the full versions of these publications for sale, and we show content-targeted ads that are served through the Google AdSense program.

Google Desktop Search. Google Desktop Search enables our users to perform a full text search on the contents of their own computer, including email, files, instant messenger chats and web browser history. Users can use this service to view web pages they have visited even when they are not online.

Google Alerts. Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on the user’s choice of query or topic. Typical uses include monitoring a developing news story, keeping current on a competitor or industry, getting the latest on a celebrity or event, or keeping tabs on a favorite sports team.

Google Labs. Google Labs is our playground for our engineers and for adventurous Google users. On Google Labs, we post product prototypes and solicit feedback on how the technology could be used or improved. Current Google Labs examples include:

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Blogger. Blogger is a leading web-based publishing tool that gives people the ability to publish to the web instantly using weblogs, or “blogs.” Blogs are web pages usually made up of short, informal, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically. Blogs can facilitate communications among small groups or to a worldwide audience in a way that is simpler and easier to follow than traditional email or discussion forums.

Google Deskbar. Google Deskbar enables people to search with Google from the taskbar of their computer without launching a web browser.

Picasa. Picasa is software that helps you find, edit and share all the pictures on your computer. It streamlines the digital photography experience, letting you easily transfer pictures from your camera, organize them, apply fixes or special effects, and share them in email. Picasa’s “hello” service also lets you share pictures with others and chat about them in real-time, or post them to your blog. Picasa integrates with other Google services, including Gmail, Blogger, and Froogle.

Keyhole. Keyhole enables users to see and explore the world from their desktop. Keyhole users are able to fly to a specific location and learn about that area through detailed satellite and aerial images, 3D topography, street maps, and millions of data points describing the location of businesses, schools, parks, and other points of interest around the globe.

Google Web Directory. Google Web Directory enables people to browse and search through web sites that have been organized into categories. Our directory combines Google’s search technology with the categorization developed by the Open Directory Project and has content in 75 languages.

Limited Availability Services. Some of our product offerings are in their initial test phases and are currently available to limited audiences. Examples include Gmail, our free email service, and Orkut, an invitation-based online meeting place where people can socialize, make new acquaintances and find others who share their interests.

Google AdWords

Google AdWords is our global advertising program, which enables advertisers to present ads to people at the precise moment those people are looking for information related to what the advertiser has to offer. Advertisers use our automated tools, often with little or no assistance from us, to create text-based ads, bid on the keywords that will trigger the display of their ads and set daily spending budgets. AdWords features an automated, low-cost online signup process that enables advertisers to implement ad campaigns that can become live in 15 minutes or less. The total sign-up cost for becoming an AdWords advertiser is only $5.00.

Ads are ranked for display in AdWords based on a combination of the maximum cost per click (CPC) set by the advertiser and click-through rates and other factors used to determine the relevance of the ads. This favors the ads that are most relevant to users, improving the experience for the person looking for information and for the advertiser who is generating relevant ads. AdWords has many features that make it easy to set up and manage ad campaigns for maximum efficiency and effectiveness:

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For larger advertisers, we offer additional services that help to maximize returns on their Internet marketing investments and improve their ability to run large, dynamic campaigns. These include:

Google AdSense

Our Google AdSense program enables the web sites in our Google Network to serve targeted ads from our AdWords advertisers. Targeting can be based on search results or on web content. We share most of the revenue generated from ads shown by a member of the Google Network with that member. Most of the web sites that make up the Google Network sign up with us online, under agreements with no required term. We also engage in direct selling efforts to convince web sites with significant traffic to join the Google Network, under agreements that vary in duration. For our network members, we offer:

Google AdSense for search. For Internet companies who want to target search audiences, we offer Google AdSense for search. Web sites use AdSense for search to generate additional revenue by serving relevant AdWords ads targeted to search results. Because we also offer to license our web search technology along with Google AdSense for search, companies without their own search service can offer Google WebSearch to improve the usefulness of their web sites for their users while increasing their revenue. We offer online signup for a hosted version of AdSense for search. We offer a more customizable premium offering to websites with significant traffic.

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Google AdSense for content. Google AdSense for content enables web sites to generate revenue from advertising by serving relevant AdWords ads targeted to web content. Our automated technology analyzes the meaning of web content and serves relevant advertising, usually in a fraction of a second. There is no charge for web sites to participate in our AdSense for content program. Using our automated sign-up process, web sites can quickly display AdWords ads on their sites. We share the majority of the revenues generated from click-throughs on these ads with the Google Network members that display the ads. For advertisers, this enables them to extend their reach to other websites; for publishers, it gives them access to a large base of advertisers specifically targeted for their content; and for users, it offers ads related to the content of the page. For web sites with more than 20 million page views per month, we provide customization services. Important AdSense for content features include:

Google Search Appliance

We provide our search technology for use within enterprises through the Google Search Appliance. The search appliance is a complete software and hardware solution that companies can easily implement to extend Google’s search performance to their internal or external information. It leverages our search technology to identify the most relevant pages on intranet and public web sites, making it easy for people to find the information they need. The search appliance offers several useful features, including automated spell-checking, cached pages, dynamic snippets, indented results and automatic conversion of Microsoft Office and PDF files to HTML. The Google Search Appliance is available in three models: the GB-1001, for mid-sized companies; the GB-5005, for dedicated, high-priority search services such as customer-facing web sites and company-wide intranet applications; and the GB-8008, for centralized deployments supporting global business units. List prices for our search appliance models start at $32,000 for the GB-1001, $230,000 for the GB-5005 and $525,000 for the GB-8008. The Google Mini is targeted at small and medium sized businesses to provide search on public web sites and intranets. It is sold online through the Google Store for $4995.

Technology

We began as a technology company and have evolved into a software, technology, Internet, advertising and media company all rolled into one. We take technology innovation very seriously. We compete aggressively for talent, and our people drive our innovation, technology development and operations. We strive to hire the best computer scientists and engineers to help us solve very significant challenges across systems design, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data mining, networking, software engineering, testing, distributed systems, cluster design and other areas. We work hard to provide an environment where these talented people can have fulfilling jobs and produce technological innovations that have a positive effect on the world through daily use by millions of people. We employ technology whenever possible to increase the efficiency of our business and to improve the experience we offer our users.

We provide our web search and targeted advertising technology using a large network of commodity computers running custom software developed in-house. Some elements of our technology include:

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Web Search Technology

Our web search technology uses a combination of techniques to determine the importance of a web page independent of a particular search query and to determine the relevance of that page to a particular search query. We do not explain how we do ranking in great detail because some people try to manipulate our search results for their own gain, rather than in an attempt to provide high-quality information to users.

Ranking Technology. One element of our technology for ranking web pages is called PageRank. While we developed much of our ranking technology after Google was formed, PageRank was developed at Stanford University with the involvement of our founders, and was therefore published as research. Most of our current ranking technology is protected as trade-secret. PageRank is a query-independent technique for determining the importance of web pages by looking at the link structure of the web. PageRank treats a link from web page A to web page B as a “vote” by page A in favor of page B. The PageRank of a page is the sum of the PageRank of the pages that link to it. The PageRank of a web page also depends on the importance (or PageRank) of the other web pages casting the votes. Votes cast by important web pages with high PageRank weigh more heavily and are more influential in deciding the PageRank of pages on the web.

Text-Matching Techniques. Our technology employs text-matching techniques that compare search queries with the content of web pages to help determine relevance. Our text-based scoring techniques do far more than count the number of times a search term appears on a web page. For example, our technology determines the proximity of individual search terms to each other on a given web page, and prioritizes results that have the search terms near each other. Many other aspects of a page’s content are factored into the equation, as is the content of pages that link to the page in question. By combining query independent measures such as PageRank with our text-matching techniques, we are able to deliver search results that are relevant to what people are trying to find.

Advertising Technology

Our advertising program serves millions of relevant, targeted ads each day based on search terms people enter or content they view on the web. The key elements of our advertising technology include:

Google AdWords Auction System. We use the Google AdWords auction system to enable advertisers to automatically deliver relevant, targeted advertising. Every search query we process involves the automated execution of an auction, resulting in our advertising system often processing hundreds of millions of auctions per day. To determine whether an ad is relevant to a particular query, this system weighs an advertiser’s willingness to pay for prominence in the ad listings (the CPC) and interest from users in the ad as measured by the click-through rate and other factors. If an ad does not attract user clicks, it moves to a less prominent position on the page, even if the advertiser offers to pay a high amount. This prevents advertisers with irrelevant ads from “squatting” in top positions to gain exposure. Conversely, more relevant, well-targeted ads that are clicked on frequently move up in ranking, with no need for advertisers to increase their bids. Because we are paid only when users click on ads, the AdWords ranking system aligns our interests equally with those of our advertisers and our users. The more relevant and useful the ad, the better for our users, for our advertisers and for us.

The AdWords auction system also incorporates our AdWords discounter, which automatically lowers the amount advertisers actually pay to the minimum needed to maintain their ad position. Consider a situation where there are three advertisers—Pat, Betty and Joe—each bidding on the same keyword for ads that will be displayed on Google.com. These advertisers have ads with equal click-through rates and bid $1.00 per click, $0.60 per click and $0.50 per click, respectively. With our AdWords discounter, Pat would occupy the first ad position and pay only $0.61 per click, Betty would occupy the second ad position and pay only $0.51 per click, and Joe would occupy the third ad position and pay the minimum bid of $0.05 per click (or the equivalent in countries outside the U.S.). The AdWords discounter saves money for advertisers by minimizing the price they pay per click, while relieving them of the need to constantly monitor and adjust their CPCs. Advertisers can experience greater discounts through the application of our smart pricing technology introduced in April 2004.

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This technology can reduce the price of clicks for ads served across the Google Network based on the expected value of the click to the advertiser.

AdSense Contextual Advertising Technology. Our AdSense technology employs techniques that consider factors such as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size and the overall link structure of the web to analyze the content of individual web pages and to match ads to them almost instantaneously. With this ad targeting technology, we can automatically serve contextually relevant ads. To do this, Google Network members embed a small amount of custom HTML code on web pages that generates a request to Google’s AdSense service whenever a user views the web page. Upon receiving a request, our software examines the content of web pages and performs a matching process that identifies advertisements that we believe are relevant to the content of the specific web page. The relevant ads are then returned to the web pages in response to the request. We employ similar techniques for matching advertisements to other forms of textual content, such as email messages and Google Groups postings. For example, our technology can serve ads offering tickets to fans of a specific sports team on a news story about that team.

Large-Scale Systems Technology

Our business relies on our software and hardware infrastructure, which provides substantial computing resources at low cost. We currently use a combination of off-the-shelf and custom software running on clusters of commodity computers. Our considerable investment in developing this infrastructure has produced several key benefits. It simplifies the storage and processing of large amounts of data, eases the deployment and operation of large-scale global products and services and automates much of the administration of large-scale clusters of computers.

Although most of this infrastructure is not directly visible to our users, we believe it is important for providing a high-quality user experience. It enables significant improvements in the relevance of our search and advertising results by allowing us to apply superior search and retrieval algorithms that are computationally intensive. We believe the infrastructure also shortens our product development cycle and allows us to pursue innovation more cost effectively.

We constantly evaluate new hardware alternatives and software techniques to help further reduce our computational costs. This allows us to improve our existing products and services and to more easily develop, deploy and operate new global products and services.

Sales and Support

We have put significant effort into developing our sales and support infrastructure. We maintain 25 sales offices in 14 countries, and we deploy specialized sales teams across 13 vertical markets. We bring businesses into our advertising network through both online and direct sales channels. In all cases, we use technology and automation wherever possible to improve the experience for our advertisers and to grow our business cost-effectively. The vast majority of our advertisers use our automated online AdWords program to establish accounts, create ads, target users and launch and manage their advertising campaigns. Our direct advertising sales team focuses on attracting and supporting companies around the world with sizeable advertising budgets. Our AdSense program follows a similar model. Most of the web sites in the Google Network sign up for AdSense using an automated online process. Our direct sales force focuses on building AdSense relationships with leading Internet companies. Our global support organization concentrates on helping our advertisers and Google Network members get the most out of their relationships with us.

Marketing

We have always believed that building a trusted, highly-recognized brand begins with providing high-quality products and services that make a notable difference in people’s lives. Our user base has grown primarily by word-of-mouth, which can work very well for products that inspire a high level of user loyalty because users

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are likely to share their positive experiences with their friends and families. Our early marketing efforts focused on feeding this word-of-mouth momentum and used public relations efforts to accelerate it. Through these efforts and people’s increased usage of Google worldwide, we have been able to build our brand with relatively low marketing costs as a percentage of our revenues. Today, we use the quality of our own products and services as our most effective marketing tool, and word-of-mouth momentum continues to drive consumer awareness and user loyalty worldwide. We do not promote products before they are successful for our users, preferring to test them until they achieve broad acceptance. We also engage in targeted marketing efforts, such as those we deliver to our advertising clients, designed to inform potential advertisers, Google Network members and enterprises of the benefits they can achieve through Google. In addition, we sponsor industry conferences and have promoted the distribution of the Google Toolbar to Internet users in order to make our search services easier to access.

Competition

We face formidable competition in every aspect of our business, and particularly from other companies that seek to connect people with information on the web and provide them with relevant advertising. Currently, we consider our primary competitors to be Microsoft and Yahoo.

We also face competition from other web search providers, including companies that are not yet known to us. We compete with Internet advertising companies, particularly in the areas of pay-for-performance and keyword-targeted Internet advertising. We may compete with companies that sell products and services online because these companies, like us, are trying to attract users to their web sites to search for information about products and services. In addition to Internet companies, we face competition from companies that offer traditional media advertising opportunities.

We compete to attract and retain relationships with users, advertisers and web sites. The bases on which we compete differ among the groups.

We believe that we compete favorably on the factors described above. However, our industry is evolving rapidly and is becoming increasingly competitive. Larger, more established companies than us are increasingly focusing on search businesses that directly compete with us.

Intellectual Property

We rely on a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret laws in the U.S. and other jurisdictions as well as confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions to protect our proprietary technology and our brand. We also enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and consultants and confidentiality agreements with other third parties, and we rigorously control access to proprietary technology.

Google, AdSense, AdWords, I’m Feeling Lucky, PageRank and Keyhole are registered trademarks in the U.S. Our unregistered trademarks include Blogger, Orkut.com, Froogle, Gmail and Picasa.

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The first version of the PageRank technology was created while Larry and Sergey attended Stanford University, which owns a patent to PageRank. The PageRank patent expires in 2017. We hold a perpetual license to this patent. In October 2003, we extended our exclusivity period to this patent through 2011, at which point our license is non-exclusive.

Circumstances outside our control could pose a threat to our intellectual property rights. For example, effective intellectual property protection may not be available in every country in which our products and services are distributed. Also, the efforts we have taken to protect our proprietary rights may not be sufficient or effective. Any significant impairment of our intellectual property rights could harm our business or our ability to compete. Also, protecting our intellectual property rights is costly and time consuming. Any increase in the unauthorized use of our intellectual property could make it more expensive to do business and harm our operating results.

Companies in the Internet, technology and media industries own large numbers of patents, copyrights and trademarks and frequently enter into litigation based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. As we face increasing competition, the possibility of intellectual property claims against us grows. Our technologies may not be able to withstand any third-party claims or rights against their use.

Government Regulation

We are subject to a number of foreign and domestic laws that affect companies conducting business on the Internet. In addition, because of the increasing popularity of the Internet and the growth of online services, laws relating to user privacy, freedom of expression, content, advertising, information security and intellectual property rights are being debated and considered for adoption by many countries throughout the world.

In the U.S., laws relating to the liability of providers of online services for activities of their users are currently being tested by a number of claims, which include actions for defamation, libel, invasion of privacy and other data protection claims, tort, unlawful activity, copyright or trademark infringement, or other theories based on the nature and content of the materials searched and the ads posted or the content generated by users. Likewise, other federal laws could have an impact on our business. For example, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has provisions that limit, but do not eliminate, our liability for listing or linking to third-party web sites that include materials that infringe copyrights or other rights, so long as we comply with the statutory requirements of this act. The Children’s Online Protection Act and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act restrict the distribution of materials considered harmful to children and impose additional restrictions on the ability of online services to collect information from minors. In addition, the Protection of Children from Sexual Predators Act of 1998 requires online service providers to report evidence of violations of federal child pornography laws under certain circumstances.

In addition, the application of existing laws regulating or requiring licenses for certain businesses of our advertisers, including, for example, distribution of pharmaceuticals, adult content, financial services, alcohol or firearms, can be unclear. Application of these laws in an unanticipated manner could expose us to substantial liability and restrict our ability to deliver services to our users. For example, some French courts have interpreted French trademark laws in ways that would, if upheld, limit the ability of competitors to advertise on generic keywords.

We also face risks from legislation that could be passed in the future. For example, there is a risk that state legislatures will attempt to regulate the automated scanning of email messages in ways that interfere with our Gmail free advertising-supported web mail service. Any such legislation could make it more difficult for us to operate or could prohibit the aspects of our Gmail service that uses computers to match advertisements to the content of a user’s email message when email messages are viewed using the service. Also, depending on how the legislation is written, it could inhibit our ability to engage in rigorous spam filtering and provide other content- based services to our users, such as providing related news links. This could prevent us from implementing certain services in any affected states.

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We are also subject to international laws associated with data protection in Europe and elsewhere and the interpretation and application of data protection laws is still uncertain and in flux. In addition, because our services are accessible worldwide, foreign jurisdictions may claim that we are required to comply with their laws.

Culture and Employees

We take great pride in our company culture and embrace it as one of our fundamental strengths. We remain steadfast in our commitment to constantly improve the technology we offer to our users and advertisers and to web sites in the Google Network. We have assembled what we believe is a highly talented group of employees. Our culture encourages the iteration of ideas to address complex technical challenges. In addition, we embrace individual thinking and creativity. As an example, we encourage our engineers to devote 20% of their time to work on independent projects. Many of our significant new products have come from these independent projects, including Google News, AdSense for content and Orkut.

Despite our rapid growth, we constantly seek to maintain a small-company feel that promotes interaction and the exchange of ideas among employees. We try to minimize corporate hierarchy to facilitate meaningful communication among employees at all levels and across departments, and we have developed software to help us in this effort. We believe that considering multiple viewpoints is critical to developing effective solutions, and we attempt to build consensus in making decisions. While teamwork is one of our core values, we also significantly reward individual accomplishments that contribute to our overall success. As we grow, we expect to continue to provide compensation structures that are more similar to those offered by start-ups than established companies. We will focus on very significant rewards for individuals and teams that build amazing things that provide significant value to us and our users.

At December 31, 2004, we had 3,021 employees, consisting of 1,003 in research and development, 1,463 in sales and marketing and 555 in general and administrative. All of Google’s employees, except temporary employees and contractors, are also equityholders, with significant collective employee ownership. As a result, many employees are highly motivated to make the company more successful.

Executive Officers of the Registrant

The names of our executive officers and their ages, titles, and biographies as of March 28, 2005 are set forth below:

Executive Officers:

Eric Schmidt has served as our Chief Executive Officer since July 2001 and served as Chairman of our board of directors from March 2001 to April 2004. In April 2004, Eric was named Chairman of the Executive Committee of our board of directors. Prior to joining us, from April 1997 to November 2001, Eric served as Chairman of the board of Novell, a computer networking company, and, from April 1997 to July 2001, as the Chief Executive Officer of Novell. From 1983 until March 1997, Eric held various positions at Sun Microsystems, a supplier of network computing solutions, including Chief Technology Officer from February 1994 to March 1997 and President of Sun Technology Enterprises from February 1991 until February 1994. Eric

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is also a director of Siebel Systems. Eric has a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University, and a Masters degree and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley.

Sergey Brin, one of our founders, has served as a member of our board of directors since our inception in September 1998 and as our President of Technology since July 2001. From September 1998 to July 2001, Sergey served as our President. Sergey holds a Masters degree in computer science from Stanford University, a Bachelor of Science degree with high honors in mathematics and computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park and is currently on leave from the Ph.D. program in computer science at Stanford University.

Larry Page, one of our founders, has served as a member of our board of directors since our inception in September 1998 and as our President of Products since July 2001. From September 1998 to July 2001, Larry served as our Chief Executive Officer and from September 1998 to July 2002 as our Chief Financial Officer. Larry holds a Masters degree in computer science from Stanford University, a Bachelor of Science degree with high honors in engineering, with a concentration in computer engineering, from the University of Michigan and is currently on leave from the Ph.D. program in computer science at Stanford University.

Omid Kordestani has served as our Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Field Operations since May 1999. Prior to joining us, from 1995 to 1999, Omid served as Vice President of Business Development at Netscape, an Internet software and services company. Omid holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from San Jose State University.

Wayne Rosing has served as our Senior Vice President of Engineering since November 2004, prior to which time Wayne served as our Vice President of Engineering from November 2000 to October 2004. From November 1996 to April 2000, Wayne served as Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering at Caere Corporation, an optical character recognition software company. From 1985 to 1994, Wayne served in various executive engineering positions at Sun Microsystems. From 1992 to 1994, Wayne headed the team that developed the technology base for Java as the president of FirstPerson, and, from 1990 through 1991, was President of Sun Microsystems Laboratories, both subsidiaries of Sun Microsystems. From 1985 to 1990, Wayne was a Vice President of Engineering at Sun Microsystems and, from 1980 to 1985, he was director of engineering for the Apple Computer Lisa and Apple II divisions. Prior to 1980, he held management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation and Data General.

David C. Drummond has served as our Vice President of Corporate Development, Secretary and General Counsel since February 2002. Prior to joining us, from July 1999 to February 2002, David served as Chief Financial Officer of SmartForce, an educational software applications company. Prior to that, David was a partner at the law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, our outside counsel. David holds a J.D. from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Santa Clara University. On July 20, 2004, David was advised by the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission that it intends to recommend that the Securities and Exchange Commission bring a civil injunction action against David, alleging violation of federal securities laws, including the anti-fraud provisions. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s recommendation arises out of David’s prior employment as Chief Financial Officer of SmartForce, and involves certain disclosure and accounting issues relating to SmartForce’s financial statements. None of the allegations involve Google. The staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission has, in accordance with its customary practices, offered David the opportunity to make a Wells Submission setting forth why David believes that such action should not be brought and David has made this submission.

George Reyes has served as our Chief Financial Officer since July 2002. Prior to joining us, George served as Interim Chief Financial Officer for ONI Systems, a provider of optical networking equipment, from February 2002 until June 2002. From April 1999 to September 2001, George served as Vice President and Treasurer of Sun Microsystems, a supplier of networking computing solutions, and as Vice President, Corporate Controller of

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Sun Microsystems from April 1994 to April 1999. George is also a director of BEA Systems, an application infrastructure software company, and Symantec, an information security company. George holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from Santa Clara University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in accounting from the University of South Florida.

Jonathan J. Rosenberg has served as our Vice President of Product Management since February 2002. Prior to joining us, from October 2001 to February 2002, Jonathan served as Vice President of Software of palmOne, a provider of handheld computer and communications solutions. From November 2000 until October 2001, Jonathan was not formally employed. From March 1996 to November 2000, Jonathan held various executive positions at Excite@Home, an Internet media company, most recently as its Senior Vice President of Online Products and Services. Jonathan holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in economics from Claremont McKenna College.

Shona L. Brown has served as our Vice President of Business Operations since September 2003. Prior to joining us, from October 1995 to August 2003, Shona was at McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm where she had been a partner since December 2000. Shona holds a Ph.D. and Post-Doctorate in industrial engineering and engineering management from Stanford University, a Masters of Arts degree from Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar), and a Bachelor of Science degree in computer systems engineering from Carleton University.

ITEM 2.    PROPERTIES

We lease approximately 915,000 square feet of space in our headquarters in Mountain View, California. We also lease additional research and development, sales and support offices in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Bangalore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Dublin, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Hyderabad, Irvine, Kirkland, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Milan, Montreal, Mountain View, Munich, New York, Paris, Rome, Santa Monica, Seattle, Seoul, Shanghai, Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Zurich. We operate data centers in the United States and the European Union pursuant to various lease agreements and co-location arrangements.

ITEM 3.    LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

Certain companies have filed trademark infringement and related claims against us over the display of ads in response to user queries that include trademark terms. The outcomes of these lawsuits have differed from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Courts in France have held us liable for allowing advertisers to select certain trademarked terms as keywords. We are appealing those decisions. We were also subject to two lawsuits in Germany on similar matters where the courts held that we are not liable for the actions of our advertisers prior to notification of trademark rights. We are litigating or recently have litigated similar issues in other cases in the U.S., France, Germany and Italy. Adverse results in these lawsuits may result in, or even compel, a change in this practice which could result in a loss of revenue for us, which could harm our business.

From time to time, we may also become a party to other litigation and subject to claims incident to the ordinary course of business, including intellectual property claims (in addition to the trademark matters noted above), labor and employment claims, breach of contract claims, and other matters.

Although the results of litigation and claims cannot be predicted with certainty, we believe that the final outcome of the matters discussed above will not have a material adverse effect on our business. Regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense costs, diversion of management resources and other factors.

ITEM 4.    SUBMISSION OF MATTERS TO A VOTE OF SECURITY HOLDERS

No matters were submitted to a vote of our security holders during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2004.

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PART II

Our Class A common stock has been quoted on The Nasdaq National Market under the symbol “GOOG” since August 19, 2004. Prior to that time, there was no public market for our stock. As of March 28, 2005, there were approximately 2,155 stockholders of record, and the closing price of our common stock was $181.42 per share as reported by The Nasdaq National Market.

The following table sets forth for the indicated periods the high and low sales prices for our Class A common stock on The Nasdaq National Market.

Our Class B common stock is neither listed nor publicly traded.

Dividend Policy

We have never declared or paid any cash dividend on our common stock. We currently intend to retain any future earnings and do not expect to pay any dividends in the foreseeable future.

Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities

The following sets forth information regarding unregistered securities sold by us in 2004.

1. In 2004, we issued an aggregate of 263,249 shares of common stock with an aggregate value of $31,450,549 in connection with various mergers and acquisitions during this period. These issuances are described more fully below.

2. In 2004, we issued to our directors, officers, employees and consultants options to purchase 3,067,840 shares of common stock with an aggregate exercise price of $142,034,260 and have issued 260,998 shares of common stock for an aggregate purchase price of $4,812,855 upon exercise of such options.

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3. In 2004, we issued shares of our capital stock to the following investors:

Except as noted below, the issuance of securities described above were deemed to be exempt from registration under the Securities Act of 1933 in reliance on Section 4(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 as transactions by an issuer not involving any public offering. The recipients of securities in each such transaction represented their intention to acquire the securities for investment only and not with a view to or for sale in connection with any distribution thereof and appropriate legends were affixed to the share certificates and other instruments issued in such transactions. The sales of these securities were made without general solicitation or advertising.

The option grants and stock issuances described in paragraph 2 above include the issuance of 2,318,570 options and 255,046 shares of our common stock that may not have been exempt from registration or qualification requirements under federal or state securities laws. Consequently, certain of the options we granted and the shares issued upon exercise of these options may have been issued in violation of federal or state securities laws, or both, and may be subject to rescission. On November 30, 2004, we made a rescission offer to all holders of any outstanding options and shares that we believe are subject to rescission, pursuant to which we offered to repurchase these options and shares then outstanding from the holder. At the expiration of our rescission offer on December 30, 2004, none of the holders of such options and shares subject to rescission had accepted our rescission offer.

Use of Proceeds

On August 18, 2004, a registration statement (Registration No. 333 114984) relating to our initial public offering of our Class A common stock was declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Under this registration statement, we registered 19,605,052 shares of our Class A common stock, and another 2,929,626 shares subject to the underwriters’ over-allotment option. All 22,534,678 shares of Class A common stock registered under the registration statement, including the 2,929,626 shares covered by the over-allotment option, were sold at a price to the public of $85.00 per share. 14,142,135 shares were sold by us and 8,392,543 shares, including the 2,929,626 shares covered by the over-allotment option, were sold by the selling stockholders identified in the registration statement. The offering closed on August 24, 2004. The managing underwriters were Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman, Sachs & Co., Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Allen & Company LLC, JPMorgan, UBS Investment Bank, WR Hambrecht+Co and Thomas Weisel Partners LLC.

The offering did not terminate until after the sale of all of the shares registered on the registration statement. The aggregate gross proceeds from the shares of Class A common stock sold by us were $1,202.1 million. The aggregate net proceeds to us from the offering were approximately $1,161.1 million, after deducting an aggregate of $33.7 million in underwriting discounts and commissions paid to the underwriters and an estimated $7.3 million in other expenses incurred in connection with the offering. We invested the net proceeds in investment-grade, interest bearing instruments, pending their use to fund working capital and capital expenditures.

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You should read the following selected consolidated financial data in conjunction with “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and the related notes appearing elsewhere in this Form 10-K.

The consolidated statements of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2002, 2003 and 2004, and the consolidated balance sheet data at December 31, 2003 and 2004, are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements appearing elsewhere in this Form 10-K. The consolidated statements of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2000 and December 31, 2001, and the consolidated balance sheet data at December 31, 2000, 2001 and 2002, are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements that are not included in this Form 10-K. The historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected in any future period.

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The following discussion and analysis of the financial condition and results of our operations should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and the notes to those statements included elsewhere in this Form 10-K. This discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Google’s actual results could differ materially from those discussed below. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those identified below, and those discussed in the section titled “Factors That Could Affect Future Results” starting on page 45 of this Form 10-K.

Overview

Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people connect with information. Our innovations in web search and advertising have made our web site a top Internet destination and our brand one of the most recognized in the world. Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. We serve three primary constituencies:

How We Generate Revenue

We derive most of our revenues from fees we receive from our advertisers.

Our original business model consisted of licensing our search engine services to other web sites. In the first quarter of 2000, we introduced our first advertising program. Through our direct sales force we offered advertisers the ability to place text-based ads on our web sites targeted to our users’ search queries under a program called Premium Sponsorships. Advertisers paid us based on the number of times their ads were displayed on users’ search results pages, and we recognized revenue at the time these ads appeared. In the fourth quarter of 2000, we launched Google AdWords, an online self-service program that enables advertisers to place targeted text-based ads on our web sites. AdWords customers originally paid us based on the number of times their ads appeared on users’ search results pages. In the first quarter of 2002, we began offering AdWords exclusively on a cost-per-click basis, which means that an advertiser pays us only when a user clicks on one of its ads. AdWords is also available through our direct sales force. Our AdWords agreements are generally terminable at any time by our advertisers. We recognize as revenue the fees charged advertisers each time a user clicks on one of the text-based ads that appears next to the search results on our web sites.

Effective January 1, 2004, we terminated the Premium Sponsorships program and now offer a single pricing structure to all of our advertisers based on the AdWords cost-per-click model. Our AdWords cost-per-click program is the advertising program through which we generate revenues by serving ads on our web sites and on Google Network member web sites through our AdSense program.

Google AdSense is the program through which we distribute our advertisers’ AdWords ads for display on the web sites of our Google Network members. Our AdSense program includes AdSense for search and AdSense

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for content. AdSense for search, launched in the first quarter of 2002, is our service for distributing relevant ads from our advertisers for display with search results on our Google Network members’ sites. AdSense for content, launched in the first quarter of 2003, is our service for distributing ads from our advertisers that are relevant to content on our Google Network members’ sites. Our advertisers pay us a fee each time a user clicks on one of our advertisers’ ads displayed on Google Network members’ web sites. In the past, we have paid most of these advertiser fees to the members of the Google Network, and we expect to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. We recognize these advertiser fees as revenue and the portion of the advertiser fee we pay to our Google Network members as traffic acquisition costs under cost of revenue. In some cases, we guarantee our Google Network members minimum revenue share payments. Members of the Google Network do not pay any fees associated with the use of our AdSense program on their web sites. Some of our Google Network members separately license our web search technology and pay related licensing fees to us. Our agreements with Google Network members consist largely of uniform online “click-wrap” agreements that members enter into by interacting with our registration web sites. Agreements with our larger members are individually negotiated. The standard agreements have no stated term and are terminable at will. The negotiated agreements vary in duration. Both the standard agreements and the negotiated agreements contain provisions requiring us to share with the Google Network member a portion of the advertiser fees generated by users clicking on ads on the Google Network member’s web site. The standard agreements have uniform revenue share terms. The non-standard agreements vary as to revenue share terms and are heavily negotiated.

We believe the factors that influence the success of our advertising programs include the following:

We believe that the monetization of traffic on our web sites and our Google Network members’ web sites is affected by the following factors:

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Advertising revenues made up 94%, 97% and 99% of our revenues in 2002, 2003 and 2004. We derive the balance of our revenues from the license of our web search technology, the license of our search solutions to enterprises and the sale and license of other products and services.

Trends in Our Business

Our business has grown rapidly since inception, resulting in substantially increased revenues, and we expect that our business will continue to grow. However, although our revenue growth rate increased sequentially in the third and fourth quarters of 2004, our revenue growth rate has generally declined over time, and we expect it will continue to do so as a result of increasing competition and the inevitable decline in growth rates as our revenues increase to higher levels. Consequently, we believe that our sequential quarterly revenue growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2004 will not be sustainable in future periods. In addition, the main focus of our advertising programs is to provide relevant and useful advertising to our users, reflecting our commitment to constantly improve their overall web experience, and therefore steps we take to improve the relevance of the ads displayed on our web sites, such as removing ads that generate low click-through rates, could negatively affect our near-term advertising revenues.

Both seasonal fluctuations in Internet usage and traditional retail seasonality have affected, and are likely to continue to affect, our business. Internet usage generally slows during the summer months, and commercial queries typically increase significantly in the fourth calendar quarter of each year. These seasonal trends have caused and will likely continue to cause, fluctuations in our quarterly results, including fluctuations in sequential revenue growth rates. Prior to the second quarter of 2004, these seasonal trends may have been masked by the substantial quarter over quarter growth of Internet traffic focused on commercial transactions and ultimately by the substantial quarter over quarter growth in our revenues. Our seasonality is discussed below in Quarterly Results of Operations.

Our operating margin declined in 2004 compared to 2003 primarily as a result of a $201.0 million non-recurring charge taken in the third quarter of 2004 related to the settlement of disputes with Yahoo. Our operating margin before this charge was greater in 2004 compared to 2003 primarily as a result of a decrease in stock-based compensation as a percentage of revenues. We expect stock-based compensation as a percentage of revenues to decrease further in the first half of 2005 compared to the fourth quarter of 2004. However, we expect stock-based compensation as a percentage of revenues to increase in the second half of 2005, and in at least the near-term thereafter, compared to the first half of 2005, primarily as a result of our adoption of the new stock-based compensation accounting rules beginning in the third quarter of 2005, and our plan to grant substantially more restricted stock units in 2005 as compared to 2004. As a result, our operating margins will be negatively affected. For additional discussion regarding these new stock-based compensation accounting rules, see Effect of a Recent Accounting Pronouncement, included elsewhere in this Form 10-K.

The increase in our operating margin in 2004 compared to 2003 (before the charge related to the settlement of disputes with Yahoo) was partially offset by an increase in traffic acquisition costs as a percentage of revenues. This is because a greater portion of our revenues in 2004 compared to 2003 was from our Google Network members’ web sites rather than from our Google web sites. The operating margin we realize on revenues generated from our AdSense program is significantly lower than that generated from our web sites. This lower operating margin arises because most of the advertiser fees from our AdSense agreements are shared with our Google Network members, leaving only a portion of these fees for us. From the inception of the Google Network in 2002 through the first quarter of 2004, the growth in advertising revenues from our Google Network members’ web sites exceeded that from our web sites. This resulted in an increase in the portion of our revenue from our Google Network members’ web sites compared to our own web sites and had a negative impact on operating margins. However, in the second, third and fourth quarters of 2004, growth in advertising revenues from our web sites exceeded that from our Google Network members’ web sites. We expect that this will continue in the foreseeable future although the relative rate of growth in revenues from our web sites compared to the rate of growth in revenues from our Google Network members’ web sites may vary over time.

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Our operating margin may experience downward pressure in the future as we build the necessary employee and systems infrastructures required to manage our anticipated growth. We expect that the growth rate of our costs and expenses (other than stock-based compensation for at least the first half of 2005) may exceed the growth rate of our revenues during 2005 and beyond. We have experienced and expect to continue to experience substantial growth in our operations as we seek to expand our user, advertiser and Google Network member bases and continue to expand our presence in international markets. This growth has required the continued expansion of our human resources and substantial investments in property and equipment. Our full-time employee headcount has grown from 1,628 at December 31, 2003 to 3,021 at December 31, 2004. Also, we have employed a significant number of temporary employees in the past and expect to continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Our capital expenditures have grown from $176.8 million in 2003 to $319.0 million in 2004. We expect to spend over $500 million on property and equipment, including information technology infrastructure, to manage our operations during 2005, however, we may spend less depending on the availability of suitable property and equipment. As a result, our spending between periods may fluctuate significantly. Management of this growth will continue to require the devotion of significant employee and other resources. We may not be able to manage this growth effectively.

The portion of our revenues derived from international markets has increased. Our international revenues have grown as a percentage of our total revenues from 22% in 2002 to 29% in 2003 to 34% in 2004. This increase in the portion of our revenues derived from international markets results largely from increased acceptance of our advertising programs, an increase in our direct sales resources and customer support operations and our continued progress in developing versions of our products tailored for these markets.

Our effective tax rate beginning in the first quarter of 2005, and for the foreseeable future thereafter, is expected to be significantly lower than our effective tax rate of 39% in 2004. This is primarily because proportionately more of our earnings in 2005 compared to 2004 are expected to be recognized by our Irish subsidiary, and such earnings are taxed at a lower statutory tax rate than in the U.S. However, if the proportion of our future earnings recognized by our Irish subsidiary is not at the level we expect, our effective tax rate may not decrease as significantly, if at all. In addition, our provision for income taxes will be significantly reduced in the first quarter of 2005 as a result of disqualifying dispositions that occurred during that period. However, for the foreseeable future thereafter, we do not expect further significant reductions to our provision for income taxes as a result of disqualifying dispositions that may occur after the first quarter of 2005 related to incentive stock options currently outstanding. Furthermore, we do not expect to grant a significant number of incentive stock options in the foreseeable future. For additional discussion regarding the accounting for disqualifying dispositions on incentive stock options, see Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates included elsewhere in this Form 10-K.

Results of Operations

The following is a more detailed discussion of our financial condition and results of operations for the periods presented.

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The following table presents our historical operating results as a percentage of revenues for the periods indicated:

Revenues

The following table presents our revenues, by revenue source, for the periods presented:

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The following table presents our revenues, by revenue source, as a percentage of total revenues for the periods presented:

Growth in our revenues from 2003 to 2004 and from 2002 to 2003, resulted primarily from growth in revenues from ads on our Google Network members’ web sites and growth in revenues from ads on our web sites. The advertising revenue growth resulted primarily from increases in the total number of paid clicks and ads displayed through our programs, rather than from changes in the average fees realized. The increase in the number of paid clicks was due to an increase in the number of Google Network members, an increase in aggregate traffic both on our web sites and those of our Google Network members and improvements in our ability to monetize increased traffic on our web sites.

Growth in our revenues from the three months ended September 30, 2004 to the three months ended December 31, 2004 resulted primarily from growth in revenues from ads on our web sites and growth in revenues from ads on our Google Network members’ web sites. The advertising revenue growth resulted primarily from increases in the total number of paid clicks, rather than from changes in the average fees realized. Our revenues grew by 15.1% from the three month period ended June 30, 2004 to the three month period ended September 30, 2004, but grew by 28.0% from the three month period ended September 30, 2004 to the three month period ended December 31, 2004. The reasons for the increases in the sequential quarter revenue growth rates are described in the following paragraphs.

Growth in advertising revenues from our Google Network members’ web sites from the three months ended September 30, 2004 to the three months ended December 31, 2004 was $105.7 million or 27.5%, compared to $38.1 million or 11.0% from the three months ended June 30, 2004 to the three months ended September 30, 2004. The increase in the growth rate is attributable to growth in the number of page views with ads, and ultimately paid clicks. This growth is primarily attributable to more aggregate ads displayed on the content and search results pages of our Google Network members’ web sites, primarily as a result of the following factors:

Although the growth in advertising revenues from our Google Network members’ web sites was nearly as great as that from our web sites from the three months ended September 30, 2004 compared to the three months ended December 31, 2004, we expect this growth to be slower than the growth in revenues from our web sites for the foreseeable future.

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Growth in advertising revenues from our web sites from the three months ended September 30, 2004 to the three months ended December 31, 2004 was $118.7 million or 28.8% compared to $68.2 million or 19.9% from the three months ended June 30, 2004 to the three months ended September 30, 2004. The increase in the growth rate for the fourth quarter of 2004 is primarily attributable to growth in the number of paid clicks which is a result of increased traffic, substantially due to seasonality, and improvements in our ability to monetize this increased traffic.

We believe that the increase in the number of paid clicks is the result of the relevance and quality of both the search results and advertisements displayed, which results in more searches, advertisers and Google Network members, and ultimately, more paid clicks. We expect that our revenue growth rates will generally decline in the future as a result of increasing competition and the inevitable decline in growth rates as our revenues increase to higher levels. Consequently, we believe that our sequential quarterly revenue growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2004 will not be sustainable in future periods.

Revenues by Geography

Domestic and international revenues as a percentage of consolidated revenues, determined based on the billing addresses of our advertisers, are set forth below.

The growth in international revenues is the result of our efforts to provide search results to international users and deliver more ads from non-U.S. advertisers. We expect that international revenues will continue to grow as a percentage of our total revenues in the future. While international revenues accounted for approximately 29% of our total revenues in 2003 and 34% in 2004, more than half of our user traffic came from outside the U.S. See Note 13 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included as part of this Form 10-K for additional information about geographic areas.

Costs and Expenses

Cost of Revenues. Cost of revenues consists primarily of traffic acquisition costs. Traffic acquisition costs consist of amounts ultimately paid to our Google Network members. These amounts are primarily based on revenue share arrangements under which we pay our Google Network members most of the fees we receive from our advertisers whose ads we place on those Google Network member sites. In addition, certain AdSense agreements obligate us to make guaranteed minimum revenue share payments to Google Network members based on their achieving defined performance terms, such as number of search queries or advertisements displayed. We amortize guaranteed minimum revenue share prepayments (or accrete an amount payable to our Google Network member if the payment is due in arrears) based on the number of search queries or advertisements displayed on the Google Network member’s web site. In addition, concurrent with the commencement of a small number of AdSense agreements, we have purchased certain items from, or provided other consideration to, our Google Network members. These amounts are amortized on a straight-line basis over the related term of the agreement.

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The following table presents our traffic acquisition costs (in millions), traffic acquisition costs as a percentage of advertising revenues from Google Network web sites and traffic acquisition costs as a percentage of advertising revenues, for the periods presented.

In addition, cost of revenues consists of the expenses associated with the operation of our data centers, including depreciation, labor, energy and bandwidth costs. Cost of revenues also includes credit card and other transaction fees related to processing customer transactions, as well as amortization of expenses related to purchased and licensed technologies.

Cost of revenues increased by $91.7 million to $453.8 million (or 44.0% of revenues) in the three months ended December 31, 2004, from $362.1 million (or 44.9% of revenues) in the three months ended September 30, 2004. This increase in dollars was primarily the result of additional traffic acquisition costs and the depreciation of additional information technology assets purchased in the current and prior periods and additional data center costs required to manage more Internet traffic, advertising transactions and new products and services. There was an increase in traffic acquisition costs of $74.8 million and an increase in data center costs of $7.6 million primarily resulting from the depreciation of additional information technology assets purchased in the current and prior periods.

Traffic acquisition costs decreased as a percentage of advertising revenues from Google Network web sites in the three months ended December 31, 2004 compared to the prior quarter primarily because more of these revenues came from members with whom we generally have lower revenue share obligations. Also, the aggregate dollar amount by which guaranteed revenue share and other payments to Google Network members exceeded the fees we received from advertisers under certain AdSense agreements was less in the three months ended December 31, 2004 compared to the three months ended September 30, 2004. Traffic acquisition costs also decreased as a percentage of advertising revenues in the three months ended December 31, 2004, primarily because of the reasons noted above and because a slightly smaller proportion of advertising revenues came from ads on our Google Network members’ web sites compared to our web sites.

Cost of revenues increased by $831.8 million to $1,457.7 million (or 45.7% of revenues) in 2004, from $625.9 million (or 42.7% of revenues) in 2003. The increase in dollars was primarily the result of an increase in traffic acquisition costs of $702.1 million, as well as an increase in data center costs of $88.7 million primarily resulting from the depreciation of additional information technology assets purchased in the current and prior periods and other data center costs required to manage more Internet traffic, advertising transactions and new products and services. In addition, there was an increase in credit card and other transaction processing fees of $26.0 million resulting from more advertiser fees generated through AdWords. The increase in cost of revenues as a percentage of revenues, as well as traffic acquisition costs as a percentage of advertising revenues, was primarily the result of proportionately greater revenues from our Google Network members’ web sites compared to our web sites.

Cost of revenues increased by $494.4 million to $625.9 million (or 42.7% of revenues) in 2003, from $131.5 million (or 29.9% of revenues) in 2002. This increase was primarily the result of increased traffic acquisition costs and additional data center costs required to manage more Internet traffic, advertising transactions and new products and services. Traffic acquisition costs increased $432.0 million due to an increase

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in the number of paid clicks on our Google Network members’ web sites. There was an increase in data center costs of $39.9 million primarily resulting from depreciation of additional information technology assets purchased in current and prior periods. In addition, there was an increase of $15.7 million in credit card and other transaction processing fees and an increase of $4.9 million related to amortization of developed technology resulting from acquisitions in 2003.

We expect cost of revenues to continue to increase in dollars in 2005 compared to 2004, primarily as a result of forecasted increases in traffic acquisition costs, and in our data center costs required to manage increased traffic, advertising transactions and new products and services. Traffic acquisition costs as a percentage of advertising revenues are expected to decrease because we believe revenue growth from our Google Network members’ web sites will be less than that from our web sites for the foreseeable future. In addition, traffic acquisition costs as a percentage of advertising revenues will experience downward pressure in the future to the extent we enter into proportionately more AdSense arrangements with members to whom we generally have lower revenue share obligations. However, this trend may be offset in the future to the extent competition for arrangements with web sites that are existing and potential Google Network members increases, which would likely result in less favorable revenue share arrangements.

Research and Development. Research and development expenses consist primarily of compensation and related costs for personnel responsible for the research and development of new products and services, as well as significant improvements to existing products and services. We expense research and development costs as they are incurred.

Research and development expenses increased by $30.0 million to $87.4 million (or 8.5% of revenues) in the three months ended December 31, 2004, from $57.4 million (or 7.1% of revenues) in the three months ended September 30, 2004. This increase was primarily due to an increase in labor and facilities related costs of $15.3 million, primarily as a result of a 16% and 42% increase in research and development headcount from September 30, 2004 and June 30, 2004 to December 31, 2004. In addition, depreciation and related expenses increased by $3.3 million primarily as a result of additional information technology assets purchased over the six months ended December 31, 2004. We also recognized $10.4 million of in-process research and development expenses as a result of acquisitions in the three months ended December 31, 2004 and none in the three months ended September 30, 2004. Note 4 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included as part of this Form 10-K describes further purchased in-process research and development expenses and other acquisitions.

Research and development expenses increased by $134.4 million to $225.6 million (or 7.1% of revenues) in 2004, from $91.2 million (or 6.2% of revenues) in 2003. This increase was primarily due to an increase in labor and facilities related costs of $98.7 million as a result of a 106% increase in research and development headcount. In addition, depreciation and related expenses increased by $28.2 million primarily as a result of increasing dollar amounts of information technology assets purchased during 2003 and 2004.

Research and development expenses increased by $59.5 million to $91.2 million (or 6.2% of revenues) in 2003, from $31.7 million (or 7.2% of revenues) in 2002. This increase in dollars was primarily due to an increase in labor and facilities related costs of $34.3 million as a result of a 101% increase in research and development headcount. In addition, we recognized $11.6 million of in-process research and development expenses during 2003 as a result of an acquisition.

We anticipate that research and development expenses will continue to increase in dollar amount and may increase as a percentage of revenues in 2005 and future periods because we expect to hire more research and development personnel and build the infrastructure required to support the development of new, and improve existing, products and services.

Sales and Marketing. Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of compensation and related costs for personnel engaged in customer service and sales and sales support functions, as well as advertising and promotional expenditures.

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Sales and marketing expenses increased $10.6 million to $76.1 million (or 7.4% of revenues) in the three months ended December 31, 2004, from $65.5 million (or 8.1% of revenues) in the three months ended September 30, 2004. This increase in dollars was primarily due to an increase in labor and facilities related costs of $10.9 million mostly as a result of an 11% and 28% increase in sales and marketing headcount from September 30, 2004 and June 30, 2004 to December 31, 2004, partially offset by a decrease in promotional expenditures. The increase in sales and marketing personnel was a result of our on-going efforts to secure new, and to provide support to our existing users, advertisers and Google Network members, on a worldwide basis.

Sales and marketing expenses increased $126.0 million to $246.3 million (or 7.7% of revenues) in 2004, from $120.3 million (or 8.2% of revenues) in 2003. This increase in dollars was primarily due to an increase in labor and facilities related costs of $91.8 million mostly as a result of a 74% increase in sales and marketing headcount. In addition, advertising and promotional expenses increased $17.3 million and travel-related expenses increased $3.3 million. The increase in sales and marketing personnel and advertising, promotional and travel-related expenses was a result of our on-going efforts to secure new, and to provide support to our existing, users, advertisers and Google Network members, on a worldwide basis. For instance, we have hired personnel to help our advertisers maximize their return on investment through the selection of appropriate keywords and have promoted the distribution of the Google Toolbar to Internet users in order to make our search services easier to access.

Sales and marketing expenses increased $76.5 million to $120.3 million (or 8.2% of revenues) in 2003, from $43.8 million (or 10.0% of revenues) in 2002. This increase in dollars was primarily due to an increase in labor and facilities related costs of $54.4 million mostly as a result of a 149% increase in sales and marketing headcount. In addition, advertising and promotional expenses increased $12.9 million and travel related expenses increased $3.2 million, primarily in the second half of 2003.

We anticipate sales and marketing expenses will continue to increase in dollar amount and may increase as a percentage of revenues in 2005 and future periods as we continue to expand our business on a worldwide basis. A significant portion of these increases relate to our plan to add support personnel to increase the level of service we provide to our advertisers and Google Network members. We also plan to add a significant number of international sales personnel and increase promotional and advertising expenditures to support our worldwide expansion.

General and Administrative. General and administrative expenses consist primarily of compensation and related costs for personnel and facilities related to our finance, human resources, facilities, information technology and legal organizations, and fees for professional services. Professional services are principally comprised of outside legal, audit and information technology consulting. To date, we have not experienced any significant amount of bad debts.

General and administrative expenses increased $11.1 million to $51.8 million (or 5.0% of revenues) in the three months ended December 31, 2004, from $40.8 million (or 5.1% of revenues) in the three months ended September 30, 2004. This increase was primarily due to an increase in labor and facilities related costs of $6.6 million, primarily as a result of a 15% and 24% increase in headcount from September 30, 2004 and June 30, 2004 to December 31, 2004, and an increase in professional services fees of $4.4 million. The additional personnel and professional services fees are primarily the result of our on-going efforts to build the legal, finance, human resources, recruiting and information technology functions required of a growing public company.

General and administrative expenses increased $83.0 million to $139.7 million (or 4.4% of revenues) in 2004, from $56.7 million (or 3.9% of revenues) in 2003. This increase in dollars was primarily due to an increase in labor and facilities related costs of $43.1 million, primarily as a result of an 85% increase in headcount, an increase in professional services fees of $25.4 million, an increase in depreciation and related expenses of $7.9 million and an increase in the amortization of intangibles of $4.7 million. The additional personnel, professional services fees and depreciation and related expenses are the result of the growth of our business.

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General and administrative expenses increased $32.4 million to $56.7 million (or 3.9% of revenues) in 2003, from $24.3 million (or 5.5% of revenues) in 2002. This increase in dollars was primarily due to an increase in labor and facilities related costs of $16.7 million, primarily as a result of a 194% increase in headcount, and an increase in professional services fees of $10.0 million, primarily in the second half of 2003.

As we expand our business and incur additional expenses associated with being a public company, we believe general and administrative expenses will continue to increase in dollar amount and may increase as a percentage of revenues in 2005 and in future periods. In addition, contributions we make to charitable and other organizations are expected to increase in dollar amount and as a percentage of revenues in 2005 compared to 2004.

Stock-Based Compensation. Prior to the date of our initial public offering, we typically granted stock options at exercise prices equal to or less than the value of the underlying stock as determined by our board of directors on the date of option grant. For purposes of financial accounting, we have applied hindsight within each year or quarter prior to our initial public offering to arrive at reassessed values for the shares underlying these options. We recorded the difference between the exercise price of an option awarded to an employee and the reassessed value of the underlying shares on the date of grant as deferred stock-based compensation. The determination of the reassessed value of stock underlying options is discussed in detail below in Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates—Stock-Based Compensation, included elsewhere in this Form 10-K. We recognize compensation expense as we amortize the deferred stock-based compensation amounts on an accelerated basis over the related vesting periods, generally four or five years. After the initial public offering, options have been generally granted at exercise prices equal to the fair market value of the underlying stock on the date of option grant and, accordingly, little or no related stock-based compensation will be recognized under the current accounting rules. Also, in the fourth quarter of 2004, we granted restricted stock units to certain employees. In addition, in the past we have awarded options to non-employees to purchase our common stock. Stock-based compensation related to non-employees is measured on a fair-value basis using the Black-Scholes valuation model as the options are earned.

Stock-based compensation decreased $8.5 million to $59.5 million (or 5.8% of revenues) in the three months ended December 31, 2004 from $68.0 million (or 8.5% of revenues) in the three months ended September 30, 2004. The decrease in dollars was due to less amortization of deferred stock-based compensation amounts from prior periods recognized in the three months ended December 31, 2004 compared to the three months ended September 30, 2004. This decrease was primarily due to options that we granted after the initial public offering at exercise prices generally equal to the fair market value of the underlying stock on the date of grant. As a result, these options were granted with little or no intrinsic value and, accordingly, no related stock-based compensation will be recognized under the current accounting rules. In addition, we granted fewer options and with less aggregate intrinsic value in 2004 prior to the initial public offering compared to 2003. This decrease in dollars was partially offset by $1.7 million of stock-based compensation that we recognized in the three months ended December 31, 2004 related to $12.0 million of restricted stock units granted in that quarter. These restricted stock units will be recognized as stock-based compensation on an accelerated basis over the related vesting period of four years.

Stock-based compensation increased $49.3 million to $278.7 million (or 8.7% of revenues) in 2004 from $229.4 million (or 15.6% of revenues) in 2003. The increase in dollars was primarily driven by the generally larger differences between the exercise prices and the reassessed values of the underlying common stock on the dates of grant, partially offset by a decrease in the level of stock option grants, in recent periods prior to our initial public offering. This increase was also partially offset by a decrease of $6.9 million to $3.9 million of stock-based compensation recognized in 2004 related to the modification of terms of former employees’ stock option agreements.

Stock-based compensation increased $207.8 million to $229.4 million (or 15.6% of revenues) in 2003 from $21.6 million (or 4.9% of revenues) in 2002. The increase was primarily driven by the larger differences between

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the exercise prices and the reassessed values of the underlying common stock on the dates of grant and, to a lesser extent, an increase in the level of stock option grants in 2003.

We expect stock-based compensation to be $145.8 million in 2005, $70.5 million in 2006, $25.9 million in 2007, $5.6 million in 2008, $1.3 million in 2009 and $0.4 million thereafter, related to deferred stock-based compensation on our balance sheet at December 31, 2004. These amounts do not include stock-based compensation related to:

At December 31, 2004, there were 302,950 unvested options held by nonemployees with a weighted-average exercise price of $0.52 and a weighted-average 36 months remaining vesting period. These options generally vest on a monthly and ratable basis. Depending on the fair market value of these options on their vesting dates, the related charge could be significant during 2005 and subsequent periods. We recognized $15.0 million of stock-based compensation related to these options that vest over time in 2004. No options that vest over time were granted to non-employees in 2004.

See Note 1 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, as well as Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates and Effect of a Recent Accounting Pronouncement, included elsewhere in this Form 10-K for additional information about stock-based compensation.

Non-recurring Portion of Settlement of Disputes with Yahoo

On August 9, 2004, we and Yahoo entered into a settlement agreement resolving two disputes that had been pending between us. The first dispute concerned a lawsuit filed by Yahoo’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Overture Services, Inc., against us in April 2002 asserting that certain services infringed Overture’s U.S. Patent No. 6,269,361. In our court filings, we denied that we infringed the patent and alleged that the patent was invalid and unenforceable.

The second dispute concerned a warrant held by Yahoo to purchase 3,719,056 shares of our stock in connection with a June 2000 services agreement. Pursuant to a conversion provision in the warrant, in June 2003 we issued 1,229,944 shares to Yahoo. Yahoo contended it was entitled to a greater number of shares, while we contended that we had fully complied with the terms of the warrant.

As part of the settlement, Overture dismissed its patent lawsuit against us and has granted us a fully-paid, perpetual license to the patent that was the subject of the lawsuit and several related patent applications held by Overture. The parties also mutually released any claims against each other concerning the warrant dispute. In connection with the settlement of these two disputes, we issued to Yahoo 2,700,000 shares of Class A common stock.

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We incurred a non-recurring non-cash charge of $201.0 million in the third quarter of 2004 related to this settlement. The non-cash charge included among other items, the value of shares associated with the settlement of the warrant dispute. See Note 5 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Form 10-K for additional information about the settlement of disputes with Yahoo.

Interest Income (Expense) and Other, Net

Interest income (expense) and other of $7.4 million in the three months ended December 31, 2004 was primarily the result of $9.2 million of interest income earned on our significant larger cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balances. In addition, we recognized $1.9 million of other income, related to grants received from a foreign jurisdiction as a result of us creating new employment in that country. These income sources were partially offset by approximately $3.3 million of net foreign exchange losses that resulted from (i) the forward contracts that we entered into to purchase U.S. dollars with Euros to offset the foreign exchange risk on certain intercompany assets and (ii) the net monetary assets denominated in currencies other than the local currencies. These income sources were also offset by approximately $200,000 of realized losses on sales of marketable securities and approximately $200,000 of interest expense incurred on equipment leases, including the amortization of the fair value of warrants issued to lenders in prior years.

Interest income (expense) and other of $10.0 million in 2004 was primarily the result of approximately $16.0 million of interest income earned on our significantly larger average cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balances and $1.9 million of other income, related to grants received from a foreign jurisdiction as a result of us creating new employment in that country. These income sources were partially offset by approximately $6.7 million of net foreign exchange losses that resulted from (i) the forward contracts that we entered into to purchase U.S. dollars with Euros to offset the foreign exchange risk on certain intercompany assets and (ii) the net monetary assets denominated in currencies other than the local currencies. These income sources were also offset by approximately $300,000 of realized losses on sales of marketable securities and approximately $900,000 of interest expense incurred on equipment loans and leases, including the amortization of the fair value of warrants issued to lenders in prior years.

Interest income (expense) and other of $4.2 million in 2003 was primarily the result of $2.7 million of interest income earned on cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balances, and $2.1 million of net foreign exchange gains from net receivables denominated in currencies other than U.S. dollars as a result of generally strengthening foreign currencies against the U.S. dollar throughout 2003. In addition, we recognized $1.4 million of other income in 2003, primarily related to a gain recorded for certain upfront fees paid by advertisers whose ads were not delivered during the related contract periods. These income sources were partially offset by $1.9 million of interest expense incurred on equipment loans and leases, including the amortization of the fair value of warrants issued to lenders in prior years.

Provision for Income Taxes

Our provision for income taxes increased to $251.1 million in 2004 from $241.0 million in 2003. However, our effective tax rate, or our provision for income taxes as a percentage of our income before income taxes, decreased to 39% in 2004 from 70% in 2003. This decrease is primarily a result of reductions to our provision for income taxes after our initial public offering in August 2004 related to certain stock-based compensation and disqualifying dispositions on incentive stock options. After our initial public offering and through the end of the year, we reduced our provision for income taxes by $23.0 million and $70.0 million as a result of stock-based compensation recognized during and prior to this period related to unexercised non-qualified stock options. In addition, we reduced our provision for income taxes by $42.2 million as a result of disqualifying dispositions that occurred after our initial public offering related to cumulative stock-based compensation recognized for all of our incentive stock options. No reductions were made to our provision for income taxes in 2003 related to stock-based compensation. Without these reductions in 2004, our provision for income taxes would have been increased by approximately $135.2 million, which would have increased our effective tax rate by 20%. The

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difference between this increased tax rate in 2004 and the actual rate of 70% in 2003 is primarily a result of less stock-based compensation as a percentage of income before income taxes in 2004 compared to 2003.

Our effective tax rate beginning in the first quarter of 2005, and for the foreseeable future thereafter, is expected to be significantly lower than our effective tax rate of 39% in 2004. This is primarily because proportionately more of our earnings in 2005 compared to 2004 are expected to be recognized by our Irish subsidiary, and such earnings are taxed at a lower statutory tax rate (12.5%) than in the U.S. (35.0%). However, if future earnings recognized by our Irish subsidiary are not as proportionately great as we expect, our effective tax rate may not decrease as significantly, if at all. In addition, our provision for income taxes will be significantly reduced in the first quarter of 2005 as a result of disqualifying dispositions that occurred during that period. However, for the foreseeable future thereafter, we do not expect further significant reductions to our provision for income taxes as a result of disqualifying dispositions that may occur after the first quarter of 2005 related to incentive stock options currently outstanding. Furthermore, we do not expect to grant a significant number of incentive stock options in the foreseeable future. For additional discussion regarding the accounting for disqualifying dispositions on incentive stock options, see Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates included elsewhere in this Form 10 K.

Our provision for income taxes increased to $241.0 million or an effective tax rate of 70% during 2003, from $85.3 million or an effective tax rate of 46% during 2002. The increase in our provision for income taxes primarily resulted from an increase in Federal and state income taxes, driven by higher taxable income year over year. Our effective tax rate is higher than the statutory rate because, in arriving at income before income taxes, we include in our costs and expenses significant non-cash expenses related to stock-based compensation, which are recognized for financial reporting purposes, but did not reduce our provision for income taxes during these years. The increase in our effective tax rates in 2003 was primarily the result of an increase in stock-based compensation amounts.

A reconciliation of the federal statutory income tax rate to our effective tax rate is set forth in Note 12 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Form 10-K.

Quarterly Results of Operations

You should read the following tables presenting our quarterly results of operations in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and related notes contained elsewhere in this Form 10-K. We have prepared the unaudited information on the same basis as our audited consolidated financial statements. You should also keep in mind, as you read the following tables, that our operating results for any quarter are not necessarily indicative of results for any future quarters or for a full year.

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The following table presents our unaudited quarterly results of operations for the eight quarters ended December 2004. This table includes all adjustments, consisting only of normal recurring adjustments, that we consider necessary for fair presentation of our financial position and operating results for the quarters presented. Both seasonal fluctuations in Internet usage and traditional retail seasonality have affected, and are likely to continue to affect, our business. Internet usage generally slows during the summer months, and commercial queries typically increase significantly in the fourth calendar quarter of each year. These seasonal trends have caused and will likely continue to cause, fluctuations in our quarterly results, including fluctuations in sequential revenue growth rates. Prior to the second quarter of 2004, these seasonal trends may have been masked by the substantial quarter over quarter growth of Internet traffic focused on commercial transactions and ultimately by the substantial quarter over quarter growth in our revenues.