SAN FRANCISCO — Internet icon Yahoo! Inc.'s third-quarter profit more than doubled, continuing a recent roll driven by an online advertising revival.

The Sunnyvale-based company said Wednesday that it earned $65.3 million, or 10 cents per share, for the three months ended in September, up from $28.9 million, or 5 cents per share, at the same time last year.

The results were a penny above the consensus estimate among analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call.

Third-quarter revenue totaled $356.8 million, a 43 percent improvement from last year.

The recovery began with online advertisers "sticking a toe in the water, then they put a whole leg in and now they are putting in a lot more," Terry Semel, Yahoo's chief executive, said in an interview Wednesday.

In a show of optimism, Yahoo raised its outlook for the fourth quarter, with management predicting online advertising's growth will continue to outpace the gains in other media.

The latest developments, announced after the stock market closed, appeared to please investors. Yahoo's shares fell 14 cents to close at $38.79 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, then surged 52 cents in extended trading.

Yahoo's profits have increased for six consecutive quarters, reflecting a recovery in the Internet advertising market that accounts for most of the company's revenue.

The online advertising market shriveled in late 2000 on the heels of the dot-com crash, heaping big losses on Yahoo and prompting the company to recruit Semel, a former movie studio mogul, to engineer a turnaround.

Semel orchestrated a reorganization that included mass layoffs to lower expenses and the introduction of more subscription services to produce more revenue.

But Yahoo's comeback wouldn't be so dramatic if advertisers hadn't started to spend money on the Internet again.

The about-face has been a boon for Yahoo because it has a huge audience, claiming 245 million registered users as of Sept. 30, and aligned itself with a highly profitable advertising search engine that the company recently bought in a $1.7 billion acquisition of Overture Services Inc.

Online advertising and other marketing generated $245.1 million of Yahoo's online advertising, a 48 percent increase from $165.8 million at the same time last year.

The recent advertising resurgence extends beyond Overture's commercial search engine, which auctions the listings under specific keywords, such as "motel," to the highest bidder. Advertisers pay a commission each time someone clicks on a link displayed by Overture's search engine.