We've been covering the Google zombie phenomenon for some time now. There is actually a spike in discussion around it in the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread right now.
But there is one more theory about this phenomenon that I want to share from the thread, a webmaster codenamed aristotle said:
The real issue for ecommerce sites is what google is doing with people who know what they want and are ready to buy. Call these "likely buyers". I believe that google can identify most of these "likely buyers" by the search term that they use, their search history, their location, and perhaps other factors. I also believe that google gives special attention to these likely buyers and probably shows them a special set of search results.So it's these likely buyers that you should be thinking about, not zombies etc
See that? He is saying that Google knows who is likely to buy and not and will shift the search results based on those types of users. So maybe Google is getting it wrong recently?
It is an interesting theory, something I can't prove but wanted to share either way.
What do you think about it?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
