On Monday morning, Brian Pitz of UBS, raised his price target to $580 from $525.

"We raise our Q3, Q4 and 2010 estimates as keyword pricing has improved more than expected in Q3," the analyst said. "Our checks with several [search engine marketers] suggest CPCs (or keyword pricing) in depressed categories such as retail turned positive after declining in 1H09. The retail category makes up 40-60% of US search ad spend. Also, our proprietary checks indicate coverage remains good, improving through Q3 and into Q4."

Ben Schachter at Brodpont AMTech also has high hopes for Google.

"We estimate 3Q net revenue growth of 4.1% sequentially (FX-neutral), boosted by a ~2.5% tailwind from a weaker U.S. dollar (we believe buy-side top-line 3Q growth expectations are closer to ~5%-6%)," Schachter wrote. "One byproduct of the recovery in GOOG's business could be larger 3Q bonus accruals (which should bite into 3Q operating profits relative to 1Q/2Q), but we continue to like the stock into 4Q and note our 4Q EPS estimates are street high at $6.25."

Google executives are likely to brush off questions about Levinson's departure.

The move comes nine weeks after Google CEO Eric Schmidt left the board of Apple, where Levinson also serves. The presence of both men on Apple's board had prompted a Federal Trade Commission investigation, launched in May, over whether Schmidt and Levinson's board service violated federal competition rules.