Bob Tedeschi has never been a company manager.

If he had he would know better than to wring his hand over news that the supply of search engine ads, like Google AdWords (left), is falling behind demand.

In Tedeschi's defense he was just repeating the idiocy of Kenneth Cassar, a Nielsen//NetRatings analyst who needs a cold bath in market reality himself.

"In the long term, we'll hit a wall where a lot of the search buys that make sense today won't make sense anymore because prices will have risen so high," Mr. Cassar said. "So for the search engines to grow their revenues, they'll have to increase supply."

And the problem with that is...what exactly?

This is a supply-demand problem that will sort itself out naturally, if the market is simply given good information. Some keyword combinations are going to start drawing high (even ridiculous) prices. But there will inevitably be other, related keyword combinations offering better value for money. And Google allows multiple ads on result pages.

The key to making this work will be giving good, fair information to potential ad buyers. Tools like ad counts on specific combinations, and page counts on other combinations (which have fewer ads or lower-priced inventory) will give ad buyers the chance to sort this out for themselves.

My guess is this will be yet-another case where Google's transparency will triumph. Because it is the most transparent operation that will draw the loyalty of the ad buyer. Those search engines who try to manipulate the market by withholding information may do well in the long run, but they'll be blown away by the seller who is fair.