GOOGLE, owner of the most popular internet search engine, said third-quarter profit rose 46% after the company extended its lead over Yahoo and sold more ads on YouTube.

GOOGLE has said fourth-quarter profit more than doubled as the company expanded its lead over Yahoo and sold more advertising outside the US.

Internet search engine Google kept up its record for surprising investors today after it revealed it more than doubled second quarter profits.

In a major expansion, Yahoo says its online search engine index now spans more than 20 billion web documents and images, nearly double the material scanned by rival Google.