Google was expected to releases its Q4 2009 earnings yesterday and the expectation was that it would post higher than expected profits. Google's earnings were released on schedule and while some areas of the search giants business did post higher than expected revenues, some analysts were not happy with the results.

Shares of Google fell about 4% in trading after Google posted its Q4 results, despite increasing its revenue by 17% compared to the same quarter of 2008. Google's revenue for Q4 2009 was $6.67 billion.

Analyst Martin Pyykkonen said, "[Expectations] got higher as they [Google] came closer to reporting and they delivered fundamentally sound numbers, but did not deliver a blowout. I think the stock will recover. I don't think it will fall through the floor."

The ongoing fight between Google and the Chinese government has likely had an effect on the stock price as well. Google disclosed this month that an attack was carried out in China against its Chinese office that resulted in the theft of IP and source code. Google has since said that it would no longer censor search results in China whipping the Chinese government into an uproar. Google has said that it might have to leave the Chinese search market.

Reuters reports that about 53% of Google's total revenue comes from outside of America. However, the search firm has not stated exactly how much money the Chinese search market is worth to it. Analysts predict that Google makes in the range of $200 million to $600 million in the Chinese market.

Google also announced that it had increased its employee count for the first time in three quarters. The previous three quarters say employee count reduced. Net income per share for the quarter was $6.13 compared to $1.21 per share in the same quarter of 2008. Part of the huge difference in earnings per share between the two quarters is because of charges that Google took in Q4 2008 relating to investments with AOL and Clearwire.

Analyst Sameet Sinha from JMP Securities said, "Earnings were much ahead of expectations, but top-line fell slightly below expectations. I think that is because cost per click was up about 2 percent sequentially, and we had been expecting closer to 5 percent growth."

Reuters reports that Google has declined to comment specifically on the talks between Apple and Microsoft. Google has been the default search engine for the iPhone since the popular handheld was launched. Many believe the talks are a sign that the increasing competition between Apple and Google is beginning to strain business ties. Google CEO Eric Schmidt claims that the "business structures" between Google and Apple are stable.

Google has also reported that it spent more money on marketing during Q4 than in previous quarters.