It looks like 2012 was a pretty good year for Google.

The company hit $50 billion in annual revenue last year for the first time ever thanks in part to the strength of its fourth quarter earnings. Google generated $14.42 billion in the December quarter, an increase of 26% from the same quarter in 2011, and beating Wall Street's estimates of $12.36 billion in revenue for the quarter.

By comparison, Google generated just under $38 billion in revenues in 2011.

"We ended 2012 with a strong quarter,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google. “Revenues were up 36% year-on-year, and 8% quarter-on-quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenues for the first time last year – not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half."

Investors had been somewhat concerned about the earnings report in recent days after Google's treasure and chief accountant advised analysts to re-think their estimates to account for the sale of Motorola's set top box business.

While revenues handily beat Wall Street's estimates, not everything in the report was positive. Google's cost-per-clicks declined by 6% from the same period a year ago as mobile ads continue to become more prominent.

Even so, this earnings report went better than the previous quarter, when Google's filing agency accidentally leaked the earnings report early during trading hours. This, combined with a big miss on net revenue and earnings, sent Google's stock crashing down below $700 a share.

Google's stock was up more than 4% in after hours trading following the earnings report.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Joi