Investors appear ready to embrace Google again after weeks of hand wringing over whether the faltering U.S. economy would bog down the Internet search leader’s moneymaking machine. Google won back Wall Street with first-quarter earnings and revenue growth that surpassed analysts’ predictions, propelled by an aggressive push outside the United States.

Wall Street analysts and insider stake holders have ways of giving the impression that a company is doing strong, despite not doing well at all. Weeks of speculation in the industry pointed to a Google suffering from poor performance, hit mainly in the ad industry. Google’s stock dropped significantly in the last several weeks. However, Wall Street analysts lowered their expectations drastically, and intentionally, so that Google’s earnings would surely "beat" expectations. This maneuver gives the overall perception that Google did well, when in fact it did not.

Compared to the same quarter last year, Google did not even exceed its previous numbers. Intentionally lowering expectations so that a company has a sure chance of "beating" them, is a typical Wall Street tactic to boost stock prices of any Wall Street "darling."

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