Microsoft reported earnings final evening, and in after-hours buying and selling, it appears, for essentially the most half, that Wall Road is completely satisfied. However when you have a look at the search advert income numbers, that division’s development continues to sluggish.

The earnings report wrote, “Search and information promoting income excluding site visitors acquisition prices elevated 10% (up 15% in fixed foreign money).”

So that’s nice, the advert revenues from Bing Search and information adverts had been up 10% and hey, when you use “fixed foreign money,” trade charges used to remove the impact of fluctuations when calculating monetary efficiency numbers for publication in monetary statements, then it was up 15%.

However when you have a look at the earlier quarters, final quarter search adverts for Microsoft was up 16%, the quarter earlier than that was up 22% every, and the quarter earlier than that, they had been each up about 32% every.

Here’s a chart displaying the expansion decline – if I did it accurately:

Google does not report earnings till the tip of subsequent week however I think they will not be wanting a lot better.

Discussion board dialogue at Twitter and WebmasterWorld.