Search engine giant Google Inc. unveiled plans Wednesday, April 2, to sell its search marketing arm Performics, which it inherited with its acquisition of DoubleClick Inc. last month.

In a blog on the Google website on Wednesday night, Tom Phillips, the director responsible for integrating DoubleClick into Google, said the company wants to get rid of the search marketing business to end the perception that Google might favor the unit in its search results.

There are no estimates available of what the unit might be worth, but Phillips said the company has already received expressions of interest for the company. Performics will operate as an independent company until the business is sold off, he added.

"It's clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business," Phillips wrote in the blog. "Maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to Google's mission and core to the trust we ask from our users."

Long before Mountain View, Calif.-based Google closed the purchase of DoubleClick on March 11, critics said the company had a conflict in its business because of the competing goals of search marketing and affiliate marketing operations.

Affiliate marketing - Google's specialty - allows advertisers to pay Web sites to drive users to their advertisements. But search marketing operations like Chicago-based Performics are consultants who help advertisers choose keywords to help increase readership for advertising campaigns using Web searches.

Some critics had warned that Performics' efforts could be compromised if they were owned by the biggest search engine, and a renowned affiliate marketing specialist.

``Well, thank you Google!,'' said search engine analyst Danny Sullivan in a posting on his Search Engine Land blog. ``They've acted far more quickly than I would have hoped for, announcing today that the company will be splitting Performics into two separate companies (affiliate marketing and search marketing) and selling the search marketing business off.''

Performics employs 200 of DoubleClick's 1,500 employees and had been seen as a likely divestiture since Google agreed to buy Doubleclick for $3.4 billion last year.

Google shares on Wednesday were down one cent at $465.70. -- Peter Moreira