Google (GOOG: sentiment, chart, options) is searching for support this afternoon, following a slew of negative comments at Barclay's. Ahead of the open this morning, the brokerage firm cut its price target on the shares to $490 from $542, but maintained its "overweight" rating. In comments accompanying the research note, Barclay's analyst Douglas Anmuth said that "Checks with multiple SEMs (search engine marketers) and comments from IAC & Infospace lead us to believe that October was weaker than expected, suggesting macro finally catching up with Google and search, impacting both paid clicks & CPCs (cost-per-clicks)."

Furthermore, Anmuth stated that he believes that Google will write down approximately $500 million of its $1 billion investment in Time Warner's (TWX) AOL unit. The result would be a charge of about $1.17 per share on a GAAP basis. According to the analyst, "We are not surprised that Google would write down its investment in AOL given AOL's recent results of declining advertising revenues and our projection of continued declines for the remainder of 2008 and throughout 2009. Interestingly, while we project negative growth at AOL's display and Third Party Network over this period, we project AOL's search business, powered by Google, to grow."

As we continue to state in our weekly edition of Monday Morning Outlook, there is ample room for more negative commentary from the brokerage bunch for GOOG. Specifically, Zacks.com reports that 20 of the 22 analysts following the company rate it a "buy" or better, while Thomson Financial indicates that the average 12-month price target for GOOG rests at $526.16 per share - a 67% premium to the stock's current trading range near $313 per share.