And you thought that Google did not want to run the world! Google has decided you should be able to search for content based on reading level. To help you along they’ve categorized the Internet into 3 different reading levels: basic, intermediate, and advanced. How did they do this you ask? Well leave it to Google to take a simple yet brilliant path to solving a problem. Google actually just hired teachers to grade Web sites.
Images by Search Engine News
As you can see from the image above, they have used a grading system to create a statistical model by which they can compare other Web sites. Nothing better than to support any project where Google solves its problems by paying the hard working and underpaid teachers of the world some extra money. To work out the advanced reading level, Google looked no further than its own Google Scholar search. This is filled with peer reviewed articles usually written by master’s students and PhD’s.
Outside of the ability to filter or label results with a reading level, many people have been searching with the “site:” search command with the filter on to see the reading level of certain sites. When you’re seeing this type of information about your sites, stay focused on your target market and don’t create busy work. While this tool could tell you how “dumb” or “smart” your site is, it is questionable whether you want a lower reading level on your site, or a higher reading level. Of course, if you’re getting a “genius” reading level and your target market is preteens – a little adjusting might be in order.
Source:Search Engine News.com
In an older post, I talked about how Google was warning their visitors about any Malware issues they were experiencing. Google went back and tweaked this and have added this into the search results that tells users when a site may have been hacked or compromised. Google’s goal is to return quality results and a good user experience. That means filtering out sites that have the potential to be infected with malware. It makes perfect sense to add an easy way for users to see if a site has been compromised or not.
Visitors will completely avoid your site if they see this type of alert on your listing. So, act quickly if you have this notice within your site’s listing. Once fixed, Google will remove the alert within a couple days. You can also request a review to speed up the process
