Voracious readers of items on Google (News - Alert) News can get official badges from the site by reading about their favorite topics. In the U.S. edition of Google News, the more users read, the higher the badge level they will receive.

It starts off with a Bronze badge, followed by Silver, Gold, Platinum and then “Ultimate.”

How much do users read on Google News?

In a recent blog post, Google engineer Natasha Mohanty, an engineer, said that the average reader of political news has read 20 articles on Google News about politics in the last six months. Google News has over 500 badges available.

“No matter what kind of news you’re into, there’s a badge out there for you,” Mohanty said in the blog post.

In addition, users can share their badges with friends. Users can also add custom sections by clicking on the “add section” option as they read more about a topic.

Also,  Google News said it has separated the Sci/Tech section into two different sections for English editions. It will be separated for other languages, too.

And Google News combined personalization settings from “News for you” and “News Settings” menu into a sidebar at the top right corner of the home page, according to the blog post.

To test the badge options, sign into a Google account, enable the web history on the computer, and view the feature’s help page, according to Digital Trends.

Google News reminded users that badges will add up quicker if users read “a few relevant articles every day, rather than trying to read everything at once.” In addition, users can click on a badge to view content that will lead them to reach the next level, according to Google News. And Google News says that if users “read a few articles a day about your favorite topics, you should earn your first badge in about a week.”

In other recent Google News, TMCnet reported that about 9 out of 10 users of Google+ are males.

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