Larry and Sergey are out with fourth quarter earnings for Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). perhaps the news reports of the sale of the Motorola unit this week should have been a tell that Google wanted to simplify its operations. investors seem either complacent or confused after the report.

Earnings came in $12.01 in earnings per share. Google’s standalone revenue was up 22% year on year at $15.7 billion, while consolidated revenues rose by 17% to $16.86 billion. Thomson Reuters had estimates of $12.26 per share and $16.75 billion in revenue.

Where Google is about to get very complicated is in its structure. The company said:

Google Inc. announced today that its Board of Directors has approved a distribution of shares of the Class C capital stock as a dividend to our stockholders with a dividend record date of March 27, 2014 and a dividend payment date of April 2, 2014.

This may act as a split to some investors, but it seemed like a total grab for outright control to other investors.

In the fourth quarter of 2013, Traffic acquisition costs totaled $3.31 billion, or 24% of advertising revenues. Google’s effective tax rate was only 16% for the fourth quarter of 2013.

Google ended 2013 with cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities of $58.72 billion. Other key metrics are as follows:

• Google-owned sites generated segment revenues of $10.55 billion, or 67% of total Google segment revenues – a 22% increase over fourth quarter 2012 Google sites segment revenues of $8.64 billion.
• Google Network Revenues from partner sites were $3.52 billion, or 23% of total Google segment revenues – a 3% increase over fourth quarter 2012 Google network segment revenues of $3.44 billion.
• Other Google Revenues were $1.65 billion, or 10% of total Google segment revenues – up 99% over fourth quarter 2012 other Google segment revenues of $829 million.
• Paid Clicks rose 31% over the fourth quarter of 2012 and increased approximately 13% over the third quarter of 2013.
• Cost-Per-Click decreased approximately 11% over the fourth quarter of 2012 and decreased approximately 2% over the third quarter of 2013.
• Operating expenses rose to $5.5 billion from $4.81 billion, but was static at 33% of revenue.
• Google employed 47,756 full-time employees (43,862 in Google and 3,894 in Motorola Mobile) as of the end of 2013 versus 46,421 full-time employees (42,162 in Google and 4,259 in Motorola Mobile) as of September 30, 2013.

Google’s shares are still very close to the all-time high. Shares closed up 2.5% at $1,135.39 against a 52-week range of $750.25 to $1,167.89. The stock is ticking up and down marginally after the report with no clear direction.

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