At the end of June, 2009, Google again updated its search engine algorithm. This in and of itself was not news; Google often updates its algorithms, sometimes hundreds of times a year. But this update was a bit different. It has sparked world-wide controversy and caused many sites to dramatically change page rank. Many small web site owners watched helplessly as hits slowed and search engine placement dropped. Sites once on the top of the first results page were banished to second or further. Google says not much changed and that this wasn’t even a major update. Then what happened?

One of the most obvious effects of the new algorithm, nicknamed “Vince”, is the sudden upward surge in ranking for major companies. Exactly why this has happened is a Google secret, although theories abound. One is that backlinks from social networking sites, forums, and comments are not being counted as much as before. This is given additional credence by the fact that a spokesman for Google itself has said the change related to relevant criteria and such rather nebulous concepts as “authority”, “trust”, and “reputation”.

Needless to say, this angers a great many owners of smaller web sites, many of whom have seen their page rankings drop and traffic dwindle, and who blame this on what they see as unnecessarily preferential treatment of the big boys. Bigger does not mean better, they say, and the idea that the major companies have more authority and trust than smaller ones is targeted as especially ridiculous and baseless. Smaller web site owners are also furious that links from commonly-used sources such as forums and social bookmarking sites may not have the weight they used to have, wasting a great deal of time, money, and effort – things smaller sites cannot afford to lose.

Google has previously been criticized by some for letting link authority trump relevancy, but Vince only seems to punish smaller sites while returning no better results. Smaller web sites may have to simply learn new tricks in order to hold their own with big companies and to continue to build links and gain page hits.