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More than $11 billion (£5.5 billion) was wiped off the market value of Google late last night as the internet darling missed sales and profit targets after years of defying gravity.

The performance over the final three months of the year raised fears that the company, one of the most highly rated in the world, could be suffering from the economic slowdown.

Google reported a 17 per cent rise in profits for the fourth quarter to $1.2 billion or $3.29 a share alongside a 51 per cent increase in sales.

Analysts were expecting profits of $4.45 per share.

The performance, while far stronger than fierce rival Yahoo!, spooked investors after Google’s continuous outperformance since coming to Wall Street three years ago.

Shares in the company fell by nearly 7 per cent at one point in after hours trading, or $36.90 to $527.40.

The shares are now nearly 30 per cent below the $747.24 all-time high in early November.

Analysts said that Google had become a victim of its success, given its record of smashing expectations on Wall Street.

Rick Munarriz, Motley Fool analyst in the US, said: “Google’s metabolism is catching up with it. Until now Google has been like a teenager that keeps eating at the buffet, and now it’s going straight to the hips.”

Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, insisted that the group had seen no effect "from rumours of future recessions".

However its continuing investment also worried the market. Google spent $678 million alone in the fourth quarter on data centres, servers and networks — the only figure that beat analyst expectations. It hired 889 people, taking total head count to 16,805.

For the full-year Google generated $16.6 billion in revenue, but surfers are showing sign of click fatigue. Google generates most of its money through 'clicks' on clients' advertising. The growth in these clicks was 30 per cent in the fourth quarter, against the 50 per cent average in previous periods.

Mr Schmidt said that the group was also not making as much money as it would like from revenue-sharing deals with social networking websites such as MySpace.

However he insisted that 2007 had been "very good". "We're optimistic about 2008, and our model continues to work very well."

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