Google's honeymoon with the stock market took a breather on Tuesday as the search giant missed earnings expectations for the first time since it went public in 2004, sending its stock price into an after-hours trading spiral.

{mosgoogle}The company posted fourth-quarter earnings that missed analyst estimates, although revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs, or commissions paid to content partners, at $1.29 billion, rose from the same period a year ago and was in line with expectations.

Gross revenue was $1.92 billion, up 86 percent from a year ago.

Earnings per share for the quarter were $1.22, or $1.54 a share excluding one-time items, including stock-based compensation charges and a donation to the philanthropic Google Foundation. That compared with 71 cents a share a year ago. On that basis, analysts had been expecting earnings per share of $1.76.

Google's earnings per share would have been $1.78 if the tax rate in the quarter had not been higher than expected, Chief Financial Officer George Reyes said in a conference call with analysts.

Google's share price has more than doubled in the past year and risen more than 40 percent since its last earnings report, closing at $432.66 on Tuesday, giving it a market capitalization of about $127 billion.

In after-hours trade on Tuesday, however, the stock fell as much as 19 percent, a loss of more than $24 billion in market value, before easing later in the day. The stock was trading at $381.50, down nearly 12 percent, at 5:38 p.m. PST.

Read the full report here.