The last five years has seen a positive shift towards quality content within websites. With more and more people using the internet as their sole resource for information gathering, and more and more books being digitally published, there is a definite need for the content of websites to be of a certain standard to compete and challenge the visitor. Possibly this has had an influence on Google when it introduced Reading Level in December 2010 as one of its new algorithms to make search results more relevant.

This year (2011) this has continued, the much publicised Panda update has created waves within the search engine marketing fraternity as Google refines, or possibly flexes its muscles to ensure that the public can find the best information relating to their Google search.

The challenge for the copywriter is to balance keyword optimisation and content relevance with readability and retention. Google will index the website content on the basis of volume, depth and originality to ascertain its “Reading Level”. Google then can take note of the depth of the content (relevance and informative weighting) of a particular website, and can come up with results in accordance with the user’s preference.

For example, when a user inputs a particular search term e.g. History of Canterbury Google will attempt to find a direct match, to complement the specifics of the search. In this case the reading level could be classed as “advanced” because it is a specific request.

On the other hand, when a user is browsing Google to know about cinema showing times, all that is being searched for are the times and costs. Therefore, a “basic” reading level is attributed. This accepts that there are some websites that are not intended to be content rich or informative but actually serve a purpose of providing an instant resource, much like picking up a telephone in days gone by.

So if Google categorizes a website on the basis of its reading level (advanced or basic or intermediate), then it clearly reflects Google’s understanding of that website’s content depth and quality. You are seldom going to find the history of film on a cinema listing website.

The concern would be that a website which is content rich and should be returned on particular searches doesn’t because the content is considered to be poor quality. This means it will be assigned to either basic reading level or below it. This creates an opportunity for expertly written content on landing pages and deep site text pages.