San Francisco ? Google Inc.’s second-quarter earnings missed analysts’ target as higher expenses and the fallout from the European debt crisis dragged down the Internet search leader.

The letdown announced Thursday stemmed from Google’s expanding payroll and a run-up in the U.S. dollar that has been driven by fears that the euro will crumble if governments in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy default on their perilously high debts.

The worries hurt Google because about one-third of the company’s revenue comes from Europe, and customer payments made with the euro translated into fewer dollars than a year ago. Even so, the currency squeeze wasn’t as severe as some analysts anticipated.