Hello Karel,
Thanks for getting in touch with us.
We have removed it because it wasn’t adding much value to users.
You shouldn’t worry about that either. Just keep your paragraphs short and words simple.
Hope that helps and please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.
Hi Todd,
Thank you for your reply. After some in depth research I am convinced that the score is quite important. Of course, the most important is a score of 60+, but still, I think it is too bad you didn’t keep it there.
RankMath has a lot of potential, but it is a semi finished product, which should not be presented as a ready product. It’s more like a RC version. I took it off my main site, because the changes are too significant and the bugs also.
I will follow it through my minor sites though. I will remain a loyal fan and follower though and I will look forward to a ready product in about a year or so of further development.
Have a great day,
Karel Mergl
Hello Karel,
Thank you for the feedback.
I will pass this on to our dev team and we hope that we will see you back soon.
Looking forward to helping you. Thank you.
I am also disappointed that you removed it. It is a good gut-check that I find useful in Yoast. I am om the fence now about migrating to RankMath. Just my two cents. Thanks!
Hi Mike,
Thank you for the feedback.
I will pass this on to the dev team and we will see if we can let the user control the tests that appear on the page.
Looking forward to helping you. Thank you.
Hi Mike,
We removed the test after much consideration. The easier thing would have been for us to keep it there because we had already put in the effort and went to the trouble of making it work.
But, we want what is best for users and if that means wasting hours of dev. time into Flesch score, then be it.
Readability tests like the Flesch are no longer relevant and that is the reason we removed it. After the BERT update, the automated readability tests have little to no value. What matters now is how well the content is targeted towards the keyword intent and the Flesch readability test cannot tell you that.
You can read more about the BERT update here:
https://neilpatel.com/blog/bert-google/
You can read more about the keyword intent here:
https://moz.com/blog/the-basics-of-building-an-intent-based-keyword-list
How to write in a post-BERT World:
https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/23379/google-bert-update/
I hope that helps and please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.
Hi
Flesch reading score might not have anything to do with SEO anymore. You guys might know this better than I do. But you cannot deny that having easy to read content will increase the time users spend on our site.
If your content is hard to read, they would leave to find something else.
This is why I believe Flesch reading score should be added.
Many of us have other writers working under them, and its difficult for the editors to check the Flesch reading score from external online services every time.
If Flesch reading score is added to Rank Math, apart from improving our SEO, we can also improve user experience on the site. After all, the user is here for good content.
If we have bad or difficult to understand content, then even if google sends the user to our site (thanks to Rank Math), the user will leave our site and this will increase our bounce rate.
I seriously as you to consider adding Flesch Reading Score as it will have many practical benefits. And thanks for making such an awesome plugin.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by
M Faiz.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by M Faiz.
Hello,
We really appreciate the feedback but we did not take that decision lightly – especially since we had already coded the feature and letting it just sit there was easier than removing what we had built.
But, the Flesch readability gives you a false sense of good content. After the BERT update, the automated readability tests have little to no value. What matters now is how well the content is targeted towards the keyword intent and Flesch readability test cannot tell you that.
They were making the text crippled for users just because they were trying to satisfy the tests.
You can read more about the BERT update here:
https://neilpatel.com/blog/bert-google/
You can read more about the keyword intent here:
https://moz.com/blog/the-basics-of-building-an-intent-based-keyword-list
How to write in a post-BERT World:
https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/23379/google-bert-update/
I hope that helps.
If you need help with anything else, please open a new support ticket here so we can help:
https://support.rankmath.com
We are always here for assistance.
