We've been waiting for merger mania to start as cash-rich tech companies look to gobble up rivals on the cheap. But is Bellevue online travel giant Expedia really looking to fly away with Google?

That's the speculation floated in a Reuters piece today, a rumor that has appeared before. Shares of Expedia gained 66 cents or nine percent today on the talk, with Reuters noting the heavy trading in the stock options market.

As TechFlash reported last month, Expedia cut staff as part of what the company called a "global brand realignment." Oftentimes, companies reduce headcount before an acquisition in order to make themselves more attractive. But does a Google and Expedia match-up really make sense?

On the surface, they seem to be in very different markets. Google is an online advertising company. Expedia is an online retailer of travel.

More importantly, Expedia's revenue margins typically hover around 13 percent, below what Google is accustomed to.

Furthermore, Expedia traces its roots to Microsoft, which spun off the travel company in 1999. Given that, it certainly would be odd to see Expedia end up in the hands of Google.

But Expedia's ties to Microsoft are fairly loose at this point, with just one insignificant mention of the software giant in Expedia's recent annual report. Google, on the other hand, is mentioned a few times as an important provider of search engine traffic. Expedia writes:

We increasingly utilize internet search engines such as Google, principally through the purchase of travel-related keywords, to generate traffic to our websites. Search engines, including Google, frequently update and change the logic that determines the placement and display of results of a user’s search, such that the purchased or algorithmic placement of links to our websites can be negatively affected.

In addition, a significant amount of our business is directed to our own websites through our participation in pay-per-click and display advertising campaigns on internet media properties and search engines whose pricing and operating dynamics can experience rapid change, both technically and competitively. If a major search engine such as Google, which we utilize for a significant amount of our search engine traffic, changes its algorithms in a manner that negatively affects the search engine ranking, paid or unpaid, of our websites or that of our third-party distribution partners, or if competitive dynamics further impact market pricing in a negative manner, our business and financial performance would be adversely affected.

Imagine -- on the flip side of those statements -- if Google could supercharge the efforts to drive new users to Expedia.

We've seen some interesting moves in the online travel space in the past 12 months, including Microsoft's purchase of Seattle-based Farecast for $115 million. It has also been rumored that Expedia may be considering going private.

It would be fascinating to see how Google would integrate a large online player like Expedia, which has lost nearly half its value in the past six months. It now boasts a market value of $2.3 billion, well within Google's reach.

Google, with a market cap of $105 billion and cash of $15 billion, does have the heft to pull it off. But will it really happen?