Adam Sherk

  • About
  • SEO
  • Social Media
  • PR
  • Publishing

Which News Sites Have the Highest Reading Level According to Google?

December 14, 2010 by Adam Sherk

I saw Malcolm Coles’ post on Google’s reading level scores for UK newspapers and thought it would be fun to do the same thing for US news sites. Last week Google released a new search filter that allows users to refine search results by reading level. So what reading level does Google assign to major news sites in the US?

I was going to look at top 25 US newspapers online according to Journalistics but I decided to include a wider variety of news sites. So instead I pulled out the US news sites from my comparison post on news site social media engagement to come up with a sampling of newspapers, magazines, TV, wire services and Web-only news organizations.

How do the US news sites stack up? Google assigns the majority of content on all of them an intermediate reading level which makes sense since that level appeals to the widest audience. But which sites are aiming high or low?

Among the news organizations I checked, here are the sites with the greatest percentage of content at a basic or advanced reading level:

Most Basic Content

  1. ABC News 41%
  2. Boston.com 29%
  3. CBS News 28%

A commentary on mainstream TV news? There’s probably a joke about Boston residents here too but I’m not touching that.

Most Advanced Content

  1. Bloomberg Businessweek 11%
  2. The New York Times 7%
  3. Reuters 7%

Bloomberg Businessweek has a much higher percentage of content at an advanced reading level than any of the other sites. Must be some smart folks over there.

Here are all the scores. The sites are arranged alphabetically:

ABC News
Google Reading Level

AOL News
AOL News Google Reading Level

AP
AP Google Reading Level

Boston.com
Boston.com Google Reading Level

Bloomberg Businessweek
BusinessWeek Google Reading Level

CBS News
CBS News Google Reading Level

CNN
CNN News Google Reading Level

The Christian Science Monitor
Christian Science Monitor Google Reading Level

Forbes
Forbes Google Reading Level

Fox News
Fox News Google Reading Level

The Huffington Post
Huffington Post Google Reading Level

Los Angeles Times
LA Times Google Reading Level

MSNBC
MSNBC Google Reading Level

Newsweek
Newsweek Google Reading Level

NPR
NPR Google Reading Level

The New York Times
The New York Times Google Reading Level

Reuters
Reuters Google Reading Level

Slate
Slates Google Reading Level

Time
Time Google Reading Level

UPI
UPI Google Reading Level

USA Today
USA Today Google Reading Level

The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal Google Reading Level

The Washington Post
The Washington Post Google Reading Level

Yahoo! News
Yahoo News Google Reading Level

Related posts:

  1. Fox News Has Highest Customer Satisfaction Rating Among News Sites – By Far
  2. Google Page Speed Ratings One Year Later: News Sites Range from Up 27% to Down 73%
  3. Google Buzz and News Sites: Good Potential But Facebook Still the Better Play
  4. Borrowing Content Was Happening Long Before Blogging
  5. Press Releases Do Get Shared on Google News

Comments

  1. Doug says

    December 18, 2010 at 6:18 pm

    NPR is pretty far back. I thought their directory said how smart and advanced their listeners are!

  2. James says

    September 5, 2013 at 5:31 pm

    Very interesting piece. Have you come across any definitions of the three categories (“Basic,” “Intermediate” and “Advanced”)? I read Google’s explanation of how reading levels are determined; however, they do not put the terms into any perspective. For example, does “Advanced” mean 12th grade reading level, collegiate reading level, post-graduate? Any clarity would be greatly appreciated.

  3. Adam Sherk says

    September 6, 2013 at 9:52 am

    James – I’m afraid I don’t know any details other than what’s in the “how reading levels are determined” section of the help page, which I agree is vague. The video on that page uses elementary school students as the example for “basic” and scientists as the example for “advanced” but that is intentionally over-simplified.

  4. James says

    September 6, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    Thanks, Adam. I couldn’t view the video, so that is helpful.

    Cheers!

  5. Sam says

    May 19, 2015 at 3:31 pm

    This would be a very useful educational tool if you specified what qualifies as “basic”, “intermediate”, and “advanced, either by standard grade or lexile level.

  6. Adam Sherk says

    May 21, 2015 at 7:44 am

    Hi Sam – I’d point you to Google’s help information on how it defines the reading level, but unfortunately they discontinued the reading level filter earlier this month.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please confirm you are a real person: * Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.

Subscribe and Connect


Follow @adamsherk

About Adam Sherk

Adam Sherk is an SEO and PR consultant helping publishers with digital strategy and audience development, including enterprise SEO, public relations and social media marketing.

Adam is VP SEO and Digital Strategy for Define Media Group.

Recent Posts

  • 8 Critical SEO and Digital Marketing Opportunities for Publishers
  • How Much Google News Traffic Do Publishers Get? Here’s Data on 80 News Sites.
  • 10 Things That Expose Good Sites to Google Panda
  • Mobile Visits Account for 40% of All Traffic for Publishers
  • The Best Tools for Keyword Research, Competitive Analysis and Trending Topics

Categories

  • Public Relations
  • Publishing
  • SEO
  • Social Media

Popular Posts

  • The Most Overused Buzzwords and Marketing Speak in Press Releases
  • 5 Ways that Social Media Impacts SEO
  • Media Relations Gone Wrong: How Not to Pitch a Journalist (Video)
  • The Most Common Google News Errors and How to Avoid Them
  • SEO Guidelines for Sponsored Content and Partner Links
  • 8 Social Media Questions Publishers Should Be Asking Themselves
  • Top Link Building Tactics for Publishers
  • The Best Free (or Cheap) Tools for Blogger and Influencer Outreach
  • A Simple Workflow for Keyword Research for Content Planning
  • Beyond Facebook Insights: Useful Facebook Analytics Tools
  • The Best Free Tools for Twitter Analytics
  • Editorial SEO Tactics for the Newsroom
  • SEO Metrics for Publishers: How are You Tracking and Measuring Success?
  • Free Tools for Monitoring Hot Search Trends
  • Google News Optimization Tips

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed on this blog are Adam Sherk's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of his company or its clients.

Sitemap | RSS | © 2009-present AdamSherk.com