Google shares finished the day at $558.99 and jumped more than 5 percent after-hours. (Click here for the latest after-hours quote.)

"Christmas came early for Google shareholders," said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners. "It was a great beat on the bottom line. It's not necessarily because they are controlling expenses. It's because they are driving more revenue," he said.

The technology company reported earnings excluding items of $9.72 a share, up from from $7.64 per share a year ago.

Net income rose to $2.73 billion from $2.17 billion.

Net revenue, which excludes fees that Google shares with partner websites, increased 37 percent to $7.51 billion from $5.48 billion last year.

Analysts had expected Google to post earnings of $8.74 per share on net revenue of $7.22 billion.

"A lot of people were expecting spending to be out of control, but they had good control," said Herman Leung, an analyst with Susquehanna Financial Group.

Google said they're getting a good response to their Google Plus social-networking site, which just passed the 40-million user mark.