Over the past eight weeks I have been on a U.S. tour worthy of the Rolling Stones or The Police. With stops in 10 states, I have fielded a lot of questions and have had a number of interesting conversations. What is intriguing about my recent multitude of meetings is that the same questions seem to be top of mind for many.

Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is placing a fairly large bet that people can trump technology in the search engine game. According to a recent report in Yahoo, he's putting $4 million (of other people's money) plus an undisclosed "large amount" from Amazon on the line, betting that he can steal 5% of the total search market away from Google with his new project, Wikia.

Over the last six months I have written about two trends in the Web design world that will have an enormous impact on the future of natural search:  accessibility and rich Internet applications (RIA).  On one side of the discussion, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is pressing corporations in the state courts on the issue of designing accessible, text-based Web sites for the visually impaired who use screen readers such as JAWS.  On the other side, cutting-edge Web developers and user-experience gurus are designing rich Internet applications for better user experience in a Web …

How many search engines do we really need? According to the metasearch engine GoshMe, there are more than 500,000. That's more than one for every resident of Albuquerque, N.M. I dare you to search them all.

Since the start of '07, Yahoo's price per share has jumped about 20%. From Feb. 1 through last Thursday, Google's share price dropped by around $50. That certainly looks like a reversal of fortune for the two giants.

Last week, Wendy Davis in Just An Online Minute reported on Google's analysis of click fraud -- or, more so, its assessment of the lack thereof. After users lodged complaints with Google regarding click fraud, its "reactive" invalidation of clicks was approximately 0.02%, according to a post on the Inside Adwords blog that Davis cited. With such a minimal refund, it is clear why advertisers would be frustrated with Google and its search engine brethren when it comes to this touchy subject.

Why is search engine marketing defined by diametric opposition? It seems like for every question there are two extreme answers. And these polar opposite viewpoints are held with a tremendous amount of passion. The smallest questioning of our position can unleash a firestorm of retribution. Blogs kick themselves into high gear as aspersions are cast without a second thought. We rise passionately to defend our position, questioning the pedigrees and mental capacities of our opponents. How could someone be so incredibly dense as to not see it our way?

It's clear that online video is a huge growth category for Web publishers and advertisers. As such, it's also a tremendous growth area for search engines and search marketers.  With U.S. broadband penetration set to surpass 50% in 2007 according to eMarketer, more and more video content is being posted and viewed on the Web each day. And with new technologies like Apple TV creating quick and easy connections between the computer and the TV, the demand for topnotch video search solutions will only intensify. Currently, none of the Big 3 search engines stand …

Is it possible to write an entire column on Microsoft and not mention its two fiercest rivals? With a health search site acquisition, a puzzling patent application, and new video search demos, Microsoft doesn't need to stand in anyone else's shadow.