San Francisco - Web search giant Google reported a 19-per- cent increase in profits as cost cutting made up for a decline in online ad spending due to the recession.

Profits rose 19 per cent to 1.48 billion dollars from 1.25 billion dollars a year ago. Revenue rose just 2.9 per cent, down from 6.2- per-cent growth in the first quarter. Excluding sales passed on to partner sites, second-quarter revenue rose to 4.07 billion dollars from 3.9 billion dollars.

"Google had a very good quarter, especially given the continued macro-economic downturn," chief executive Eric Schmidt said in a statement.(dpa)