Last week, Microsoft and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. were reportedly in talks over an agreement that would see News Corp.'s Websites delisted from Google search in exchange for payment by Microsoft. Subsequent articles suggested that those initial reports were, in fact, totally overblown.

But the Financial Times, in reporting that original Microsoft-News Corp. story (which relied on unnamed sources allegedly close to the negotiations), also quoted a Web publisher who had apparently been approached by Microsoft about deindexing from Google in return for cash.

Whether or not you believe that Microsoft would try something like that--it's not exactly the smartest move, considering that Bing will occupy around 10 percent of the U.S. search engine market until the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership, which will see Bing powering search on Yahoo's sites, closes in 2010--an offhand comment during last week's Bing press conference suggested that Microsoft is likely more focused on growing its own properties than persuading publishers to delist from the largest search engine currently on the market.

During the Dec. 2 conference, Satya Nadella, senior vice president of research and development for Microsoft's Online Services Division, said, "There is no real intent here that is focused on getting a whole bunch of content that is deindexed from Google."

Because Microsoft refused to let reporters not in San Francisco dial into the conference, that quote was first reported by Kara Swisher at All Things Digital. I later independently confirmed Nadella's sound byte with Microsoft.

I feel that Nadella can be believed. At this point, challenging Google by paying publishers to delist their content would be a suicidal move for those publishers, at least as far as ad revenue is concerned; and Microsoft, trying to come back after a few quarters of declining revenues, is unlikely to want to blow millions (or even billions in the long term; last time I checked, Murdoch drove a hard bargain) on such a Quixotic effort.

Instead, it seems that Microsoft is perfectly content to chip away at Google's search dominance by adding new features to Bing. The new additions--announced during that Dec. 2 conference, and not to be confused with November's added features--include updated Bing Maps (complete with Streetside, which provides an eye-level view of local terrain that's reminiscent of Google's Street View) and a new Bing mobile application that allows voice search (among other things).

Whether new-and-improved features, combined with partnerships like the one with Yahoo, eventually allow Microsoft to threaten Google's lead is something that won't be determined for quite some time. At the current moment, though, Microsoft seems content to gain Bing's share by a point or two every quarter ... and not rush into kamikaze deals like the one being suggested with News Corp.