Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has developed the reputation as a poor investment. It was one of the worst-performing huge tech company stocks over the past year. In 2015, Google’s shares have made a turnaround as they have swung to matching the performance of the hot Nasdaq index. Perhaps the market decided Google’s main business of search cannot be replaced, flanked or even modestly challenged. Also, it has gotten into some businesses with growing value.

In the past 12 months, Google’s C shares are down about 3%, compared to a 15% improvement in the Nasdaq. The company’s most recent earnings raised concerns because of moderating growth and a modest yield per ad clicked on by visitors, which is a critical measure of Google’s health. Some investors believed this was the start of a permanent, slow decline.

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Among the arguments against Google is that online ad market share has begun to tilt toward Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) and that other social media will start to take share as well. Lost in this analysis is that Google still holds roughly two-thirds of the market share in its primary business in the United States. Its position in much of the rest of the world is as good or better. Admittedly, Google probably will never dominate search in some of the world’s largest countries, particularly China, with its Internet population of over 600 million. Baidu.com Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) has the People’s Republic locked up.

Among the things Google does have going for it is a revenue base of $66 billion, which grew 19% last year. At that growth rate, revenue will reach nearly $100 billion in two years. Google’s net income in 2014 was $17.2 billion, so the search company has an operating margin of an extraordinary 25%.

Also lost to many investors is that YouTube finally has started to come into its own, after years of near dormancy. YouTube has begun to draw an impressive list of advertisers, and it has a nascent premium streaming operation in a time when streaming media has started to become a real business. Google’s Android OS has been criticized as contributing nothing to the company’s sales. However, it has been a remarkable Trojan horse as it has helped push Google’s search onto hundreds of millions of smartphones. There is a strong argument that without Android that would not have happened.

Google is more valuable than its one-year stock price performance shows. Recently, the market has started to catch up to that opinion.

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