MELVILLE, N.Y. - Is Google the next Amazon.com?

Like the online retailer Amazon.com in the late 1990s, shares of the highly popular search engine have doubled in the past two years to a close of $414.86 on Dec. 31. In the first two trading sessions of this year, Google gained $30.38, closing Thursday at $445.24.

And, like Amazon.com, Google now has a stock market evangelist - an analyst at Piper Jaffray in Menlo Park, Calif., named Safa Rashtchy. On Tuesday, Rashtchy forecast that shares of Google would sell for $600 each by the end of this year.

Rashtchy is not alone.

Recently, a Bear Stearns & Co. analyst, Robert S. Peck, raised his rating on Google to "outperform," from "peer perform." Peck also raised his target price on the stock to $550, from $360, in the next 12 months.

"We believe that the Street has not captured the full impact of Google's potential over the next few years," Peck said in a note to clients.

In many ways, the Google frenzy is similar to what happened in 1998, when a CIBC Oppenheimer analyst named Henry Blodget predicted shares of Amazon.com would soar 60 percent in 12 months, to $400. It took only three weeks. Blodget, who later went to work for Merrill Lynch, continued to recommend buying the stock as it subsequently tumbled 89 percent as the tech bubble deflated after March 2000.

After adjusting for splits, Amazon.com's shares are now in the mid-$40 range. And, Blodget, investigated by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer as part of a broad look at the way analysts recommend stocks, agreed in 2003 to pay a $4 million fine. He was also banned for life from the securities industry.

Clearly, there is a mania on Wall Street for shares of Google, just as there was a frenzy for Amazon.com stock in the late 1990s. But investors are hoping that the similarities end there.

And, analysts and industry experts said in interviews yesterday, there are sharp differences between the two companies. For one, Amazon.com kept losing money and had little cash reserves. Google has posted healthy profits and has plenty of cash on hand. Amazon.com is an online retailer of books and music. Google has established an industry - search engines.

"Google is dominant" in the search industry, said Ivan Feinseth, who follows technology stocks for Matrix USA in Manhattan. "They will continue to grow. They have sources of revenue they haven't tapped yet."

How much of a stock's growth is a self-fulfilling prophecy? Amazon.com became a $400 stock, many analysts say, because the then-highly regarded Blodget said it would. Scott Kessler, an analyst for Standard & Poor's Corp., said Blodget had "a passionate following."

"They thought Blodget's predictions could happen," Kessler said. But faith can last just so long, Kessler and others said.

After a time, a company must show profits and that it is establishing itself in its industry. "It's very hard for a company to maintain the cache or the aura of invincibility" for a long time without showing positive results, said Joe Lisanti, editor of The Outlook, Standard & Poor's investment advisory newsletter.

But are forecasts of a $600 Google stock credible?

Very possibly, analysts say, given Google's run so far.

"I think it's fair to say that's an exceedingly aggressive target," Kessler said. "But that's not to say it won't happen."

But even if it did, Google still would not be the most expensive stock around. Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's investment firm, closed Thursday at $89,690 - that's for a single share, up $390.