'Reading Level' Filter Added To Google Search 266
entotre writes "A new feature has been added to the advanced Google search: reading level. From the blog post: 'The feature lets you filter or annotate the search results by reading level. The reading levels include basic, intermediate and advanced. You can either have Google label or annotate the results with those labels, only show basic results, only show intermediate results or only show advanced results.' At the time of writing, Slashdot is 1 % advanced, 64 % intermediate and 34 % basic."
Re:But... (Score:4, Informative)
I can haz slashdot.
Re:But... (Score:4, Informative)
After playing around with it, I get the impression that it's not literary reading level, but technical reading level. Unlike the Fleisch-Kincaid test that uses the lengths of words and sentences, Google's test seems less concerned with long sentences and more with the choice of words. This is arguably a better way to go about it, but it's a luxury Fleisch-Kincaid can't afford in it's single line definition.
For example, searching for random phrases from War and Peace by Tolstoy returns 0% Advanced results. The simple english wikipedia page for dissection [wikipedia.org], which is readable to excess but contains some technical terms ("To dissect is to cut up a body so as to reveal its structure. The body could be that of a human, an animal, or a plant. ") classifies as Advanced.
I definitely agree with your view on basic grammar, and Google's method ensures that basic grammar about advanced topics will still be classified as advanced.