There are a few temporarily empty seats at the helm of MIVA (NASDAQ:MIVA). Last night, the online advertising and e-commerce solutions provider announced that CEO Craig Pisaris-Henderson and President Phillip Thune had resigned.

That's no great shock. Back in January, MIVA had retained Deutsche Bank to "explore strategic alternatives." Even though both executives' roles are being filled internally -- for now -- it should indicate to any potential buyer that MIVA executives have no intention of getting in the way of new leadership, if it should come in at the right price.

But prospective buyers should know going in that MIVA's a fixer-upper. A few years ago, it joined Overture to become only the second profitable paid-search specialist. Overture would later be acquired by Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) too soon, but MIVA's possible nuptials will come too late.

This past quarter, the company posted a loss of $0.15 a share, with the top line dipping a grim 27%. The 23% surge in operating expenses during a period that called for more fiscal restraint only added to the buyout speculation.

MIVA was backtracking, even as online advertising giants Yahoo! and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) were growing. Then again, MIVA was in a different position than its larger rivals, doing a bit of spring cleaning to sweep away its tainted traffic network of poor-quality advertisers. That's why MIVA may still be an attractive play, despite its crumbling financials.

MIVA still has relationships and traffic, and those commodities may be appealing to Google, Yahoo!, or new paid-search players like IAC/InterActiveCorp's (NASDAQ:IACI) Ask.com and Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) MSN.com. Even in a lackluster period like its latest quarter, MIVA still generated 219 million paid clickthroughs, which may prove to be a dinner bell now that MIVA's share price has eroded to the low single digits.

For the most part, a share price in the "couple of bucks" range isn't a good place to be. MIVA shares that unfortunate locale with other online advertising players such as LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK) and Mamma.com (NASDAQ:MAMA). If MIVA receives a generous buyout offer, I wouldn't be surprised to see those companies go on the block as well.

For now, MIVA may have lost its top managers, but it clearly knows where it's going: Somewhere else.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz still believes in the paid-search sector. He does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this story. Microsoft is a Motley Fool Inside Value pick. The Fool has a disclosure policy . Rick is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.