Growth in Internet ad spending has greatly slowed down, according to eMarketer, which just cut its revenue expectations for 2009, Media Week reported.

Online ad spending will increase by 8.9 percent to US$25.7 billion next year, as the economy has eriously impacted all media segments. However, eMarketer predicted in August, before Wall Street's meltdown, that spending would boost by 14 percent in 2009.

The good news is that spending growth should gradually be back to a healthy level over the next several years, according to eMarketer - 10.9 percent in 2010 and 13.5 percent in 2013 - though still lower than eMarketer's recent forecast, as the ad recovery needs to take longer than expected, Media Week reported.

In recent years, search has been online's strongest spot, and it should gain a even larger share of ad dollars over the next few years as display ads suffer, according to Media Week. eMarketer predicted that in 2009 search will rise by 14.9 percent to $12.3 billion, although it's much lower than the growth rate this year of 21.4 percent.

Search will have its share of online ad revenue up from 45 percent this year to 48 percent in 2009 due to slowdown on other segments.

Display advertising is expected to increase only by 3.9 percent this year and 6.6 percent next year, to $4.9 billion, Media Week reported.

The segment with the biggest raw growth is online video advertising, which "will surge by 45 percent in 2009, albeit from a much smaller base ($587 million in 2008 to $850 million in 2009)," according to eMarketer. Even though that 45 percent growth indicates a slowdown, online video ad spending jumped by 81 percent this year, Media Week reported.