Yesterday, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) had its fifth birthday as a public company. Google, which has done nothing short of astounding in the last half-decade in terms of turning much of the advertising world upside-down, has defied many of the critics who probably never believed it would become as strong as it has in such a short time. That's because that kind of thinking was linear, and Google operated on an exponential scale using data and formulas to make things works quickly and efficiently, not haphazard management belief and inefficient decision making.

And so here we are. After the IPO that Google made accessible to anyone in a dutch auction back in August of 2004, the company's shares have made it all the way to $700 and above from their initial IPO price of $85, and closed yesterday at just over $443 per share after dipping almost down to $250 last December. Google has risen during the most intense part of a recession that's just now being acknowledged as being close to over.

As Doug noted a few days ago, shares in Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) have dropped to 52-week lows and then some. It's no surprise -- Google has joined just about every public company in the stock market freefall this year. But now, the company's shares have gone below the $300 mark for the first time since 2005. Is the company doomed?

Of course not. Google has very little debt and billions in cash to do whatever it wants. It, of course, won't be immune from the online advertising slowdown that's in progress and will get worse. Still, if analyst pundits think businesses can just stop advertising and expect the same business activity, that's a huge fallacy. Google will still remain one of the best advertising destinations, even as businesses squeeze their marketing budgets as much as they can.

Google's shares are off more then 50% this year, but this doesn't change the fact that Google's financial fundamentals are completely sound. But, of course, doom and gloom predictors are coming out of the woodwork with the guesswork on what Google's 2009 profit outcomes could be (flip a coin, anyone?). Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal told Yahoo! that "we believe that the high CPC (costs-per-click) inflation Google has been experiencing for the past six quarters is not sustainable and will pressure core search growth". Of course it won't be sustainable. But Google isn't going to hurt unless it stays this way for 24 months or more.

Every day, there is something new in the news about Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). The company has spent the better part of 2006 and all of 2007 preparing an "Act II" to ensure the constantly growing revenue heap if receives from text-based internet advertising doesn't lead to the "all eggs in one basket" scenario that has worried many shrewd industry watchers and investors for years. While Google's revenue from internet advertising is still growing every quarter by leaps and bounds, the company needs to share the love into other areas. Well, the revenue love, anyway.

Google has signed more high-profile advertising partnerships this year and just recently released details on what I consider to be one of its most ambitious projects to date -- the mobile phone operating system. Google, always the one to wrestle tight control from the corporate shaft-meisters and give it to the people, wants the mobile phone to be an open standard usable by any customer on any device.

Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has done it again. After passing the $600 mark earlier this year, the company's stock price jetted above the $700 level yesterday, closing at $707.00 on the spookiest day of the year, literally and figuratively. While I am a huge Google fan, are these levels justified?

From a fundamentalist perspective, the share price is way out of whack. Some may even look back to the days of the dot-com madness of 2001 in looking over Google's current valuation.

Although, in just over a year, the company has added in more partnerships and has extended its hands deeply into so many pockets that its overall reliance on text-based advertising may wane slowly in 2008. This is by design: Google needs an Act II and the planning for that is well underway. Still, it's not there yet, although its share price reflects either some insane hype or unknown potential that traders are finding in that magic 8-ball.

Google's $200+ billion market cap has been raised 34% just since September, during which it reported another stellar quarter of results, which I liveblogged here. If you held Google shares at the start of 2007, have you cashed in with the 54% return you've seen this year?

If so, why? If not, why?

If Google turns into the advertising leader in the hot-to-trot social networking scene, it could be poised to hit even higher levels.

With Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) reporting record quarterly revenue yesterday, the company's shares are now sitting at a touch under $640 as of yesterday afternoon. Oddly, Google shares did not spike up in after-hours trading on Thursday afternoon after yet another stupendous quarter for the company, with recession and economic fears still in the minds of some investors, even with Google continuing to conquer the internet world.

But at the current share price level, would Google be willing to split its shares (5-for-1, perhaps) in order to make its listed instruments more accessible to non-institutional investors? Google's IPO price in August 2004 of $85 per share was ratcheted down from over $100 for just this reason, and the shares were sold under dutch auction format in order to give anyone and everyone access to them right on IPO day. Could Google be wanting to revive some of that nostalgia now that its shares are in the stratosphere?

Although Google shares closed at under $640 yesterday, premarket trading this morning is looking at Google shares sitting at $653 (up over 2%), and analysts are raising targets -- again -- to the tune of $720 and even $900. Google's shares have been on a virtual roller coaster in the last 16 hours, and today's action will see more of the same. A share split for Google would also relieve some of the public tension (and attention) on the valuation perception of a single share of Google stock, which some say is bad for the company and the sector (let's call it "hype days"). Where do you sit? Would a split be a good thing for the company and the internet sector as a whole? Or, possibly more importantly, is Google looking for more retail ownership of its shares?