Google reported strong third-quarter 2007 earnings on Thursday. In a conference call with analysts, Jim Friedland of Cowen and Co. asked management about adoption rates of the company's Google Checkout online payment service. Google's SVP of Product Management Jonathan Rosenberg said many advertisers are reporting much higher click-through rates when using Google AdWords with Google Checkout, as much as 60% higher than without Checkout. (For merchants who accept the payment method, their Google AdWords advertisements display Google Checkout badges.)

Rosenberg said advertisers have decreased the cost-per-click by over 31% with Google AdWords and Google Checkout, "so we're seeing much more significant volumes in terms of some of these advertisers and the performance with the advertisers."

Rosenberg said Google has gotten "a big chunk of top 500 merchants in Q3" who have adopted Google Checkout, including PetSmart, drugstore.com, shoebuy.com and the NHL Store. Google did not address consumer adoption rates.

Google reported revenues of $4.23 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2007, an increase of 57% compared to the third quarter of 2006. Financial results are posted on Google's site (http://investor.google.com/releases/2007Q3.html).

eBay reported continued strong growth in its PayPal online payments business on Wednesday (http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/IBD-0001-20311196.htm).

A transcript of Google's earnings conference call is available on Seeking Alpha (http://seekingalpha.com/article/50487-google-q3-2007-earnings-call-transcript).