Last week, Microsoft announced plans to buy health search engine Medstory. More than just a buy into a great product, that purchase might be Microsoft's secret weapon into winning the search wars.

I had the opportunity to attend the Affiliate Summit is Las Vegas recently and was reminded once again that some of the savviest search marketers are that group of affiliate marketers generally known as "search affiliates."

We all want solid numbers to help us define the scope of click fraud. Thanks to sensationalist reporting by publications like BusinessWeek, click fraud is portrayed as the biggest scourge to threaten the Nirvana that is search marketing. A tremendous number of resources have been dedicated towards click fraud by the engines themselves, in response to the advertisers' demand that the problem be stamped out.