Defying the skeptics who fretted about a slowdown in paid clicks, they turned in a solid beat: Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has reported Q1 revenue of $3.7 billion ex-TAC, ahead of the $3.61 consensus estimates. Earnings of $4.84 per share easily exceeded analyst estimates, and shares are up 12 percent after hours, back over the $500 mark for the first time since late February. Not pulling out TAC, revenue came to $5.2 billion, about 44 percent higher than in the year-ago period. Some key highlights:

—International revs of $2.65 billion represented 51 percent of the total, compared to 47 percent in the year-ago period.

—Google’s own site had revenue of $3.4 billion, 66 percent of the total. Network partners, via the AdSense program, made up the other third.

—On what has become Google’s most closely scrutinized metric: “Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 20% over the first quarter of 2007 and approximately 4% over the fourth quarter of 2007.”

—The company added 2,351 employees in the quarter, 1500 of which came from DoubleClick (DoubleClick revenue was immaterial to the quarter).

—Capital expenditures came to $842 million in the quarter, which the company attributed to IT infrastructure demands. All these new ventures they’re building out—cloud computing and whatnot—they come at a cost.

Release | Webcast (4:30 ET) | Transcript