Google announced that it made  $2.8 billion in the last quarter, which was up from the same period last year. The figures, which were a little buried by the fact the company spent a fortune on Motorola Mobility which is making a loss, show that Google is getting better at flogging online adverts.

Google was also hit by dramatic swings in currency exchange rates that resulted in European sales converting into fewer US dollars than at the same time last year. Susan Wojcicki, Google’s senior vice president of advertising said that profits were made thanks to Google being able to provide more intelligent advertising results. She said that the company was moving beyond a search engine that just matches strings of words to one that understands people, the world, the way people do.

The total number of clicks on Google’s ads surged 42 percent from the same time last year. That’s the highest increase since Google began to report the clicking volume on its ads four years ago.But the average price per click plunged 16 percent from last year. It marked the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year erosion in Google’s ad prices. Google shares gained $15.94 to rise to $609 in Thursday’s extended trading.

Revenue climbed 35 percent from last year to $12.2 billion. If not for Motorola, revenue would have increased 21 percent. That would have been Google’s slowest rate of revenue growth since the fourth quarter of 2009, when the company was just starting to recover from the recession.