Google investors rejoiced – and bought shares en mass – Thursday in after-hours trading, following the tech giant’s third-quarter earnings report that revealed a net-income increase of 36 percent more than one year ago. Already up about 24 percent in 2013, Google shares rose an astounding 8 percent within hours of the closing bell, reaching $961.30 per share by 7:30 p.m. on Wall Street.

Google earned almost $3 billion – $8.75 a share – in the third quarter alone. In contrast, Q3 2012 earnings paid just $6.53 per share. And although Google’s average ad price has been on the downslide for the past eight quarters – 8 percent in the last year alone – Google is earning more ad revenue from paid clicks – up 26 percent compared to one year ago. Such a paradox indicates Google’s doing well at matching ads to users’ interests, and it proves average ad prices matter less than how often people click on them.

Google CEO Larry Page said during a conference call that mobile traffic continues to rise in importance.

Almost 40 percent of YouTube traffic now comes from mobile, up from 6 percent two years ago,” he said. “I’m spending most of my time on mobile, not so much on desktop— that’s what people will do over time.”

If not for the monies paid to its employee stock compensation, Google claims its price-per-share would have been $10.74, exceeding analysts’ projected $10.36 per share.

At $14.9 billion, Google’s overall revenue is up 12 percent over last Q3 2012, and even after subtracting commissions to ad partners, Google’s revenue was $227 million more than analysts’ forecast.

Perhaps as noteworthy as Google’s earnings was a comment made by Google CEO Larry Page during the company’s quarterly earnings call. Page said Thursday that he does not plan to regularly participate in such calls with analysts in the future. According to Page, he wants to devote more time to running Google and assisting engineers in building exceptional products. Page missed one earnings call in 2012 because of a vocal-chord-related illness, and his voice remains raspy to this day.

Disclosure: The author has no position in the stocks mentioned in this article, and does not intend to initiate any position in the next 48 hours.