Google Ends Recipe Pilot That Left Creators Fearing Web-Traffic Hit

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google has ended tests of a feature that would have let users open a snapshot of cooking-recipe content directly in web search results -- a welcome development for creators and food bloggers who were concerned about eroding traffic to their sites.

In recent months, Alphabet-owned Google has tested Recipe Quick View, which showed some food bloggers' content in search. The company framed the feature as an attempt to help users determine whether they are interested in a recipe before visiting a website. But some bloggers said they feared that the product would keep users from clicking through to their sites, depriving them of traffic and ad revenue.

Google on Tuesday confirmed it ended the trial.

Ease of use v. Advertising

[cfulmer]

Anybody who's looked up recipes online recently knows that they're being used mainly as a way to serve you ads. Before the recipe is a bunch of ad-ridden prose about the recipe itself, with some pictures. Then, at the bottom of the page is the recipe. Google was making the content more easily available, but destroying the ad revenue.

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[EvilSS]

When I go to one these days I immediately unlock my mouse's scroll wheel and give it a good old Price is Right style spin go get me straight to the bottom. Someone should create a browser plugin to do what google was proposing.

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[Petersko]

You know the vast majority of recipe sites have a "jump to recipe" or "print" button right at the top, right?

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[karmawarrior]

Try looking for the "Jump to recipe" button, that's on most websites.

The reason for all the garbage is that... get this... Google downranks websites without paragraphs and paragraphs of filler material that just display the recipe. Trust me, most recipe sharers don't particularly want to write 10 paragraphs of crap about Carrabbas Style Lentil Soup.

I hate recipe sites

[shadowwynd]

I want the recipe. Sometimes the recipe has a "print" button that helps. I don't want the blogger's life history. I don't want to know about their childhood trauma or their gym sock collection or how they grew up on a tuna barge outside Okinawa learning ninjitsu. I don't want to know how much they draw inspiration from the Croissy-sur-Seine region of France and how they got the idea for using cinnamon in this recipe from a vision from their long-dead aunt Ethel. Give. Me. The. Recipe.

Re: I hate recipe sites

[paul_engr]

YUP

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[caseih]

A hundred times this. I'd have welcomed Google's feature. Maybe there's a firefox add-on to remove the cruft and just show the recipe plus the basic instructions. If I want the cooking channel experience I'll watch the cooking channel.

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[caseih]

Guess I should have just looked. There are a whole host of add-ons to quickly extract recipes from common recipe sites. I'll have to give it a try!

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[vivian]

I have given up searching for recipes using regular search engines because of this.
If I ask Google for a banana muffin recipe, the amount of waffle you have to wade through before you get to the recipe is incredible.

Now I just ask ChatGPT "Banana muffin recipe"
and get a nice concise result without all the extra fluff.
I may have previously asked for results "without all the bullshit" and as a result ChatGPT seems to know I want concise recipes.

So far the recipes seem to be reasonable, without adding in weird

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[techno-vampire]

What do you consider to be weird ingredients? I ask because there are many herbs, spices, condiments and so on that are kitchen staples in one part of the world, exotic rarities in another. As a quick example, Grains of Paradise are a standard in my kitchen, but unless you live in Africa, you've probably never encountered them. And, I remember once reading an article where the writer was complaining that he'd had to hunt down peppercorns to make a marinade.

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[martin-boundary]

The amount of effort you're going through is frankly ridiculous. Go to a store and buy an old recipe book. No ads. No scrolling. Just the instructions, m'am.

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[tlhIngan]

The problem is that recipes are generally non-copyrightable, so recipe sites are doing all that fluff just to have content they could claim copyright on. Just providing the recipe means users can copy it somewhere else and then that's it for the site.

So yes, they deliberately obfuscate the recipe intentionally because they don't want you to just get it and leave and never come back.

Answer In Progress did a video about recipe sites... https://youtu.be/ZvC2jtmVAMs?s... [youtu.be]

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[thegarbz]

https://www.justtherecipe.com/ [justtherecipe.com] paste your recipe URL into that site and get what you want. The. Recipe.

I'm on the fence for this one

[paul_engr]

Nobody gives a fuck about your nonna's antique whatever, fuck you recipe writers. You're not getting paid by the word

Links are good

[MpVpRb]

Copying content is bad
Yes, I know that copying may be convenient, but creators depend on page views

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[caseih]

As far as I know recipes aren't copyright-able. Plus most of them are not original creations anyway. They are variations on hundreds-of-years old recipes passed down in families. I have some sympathy for bloggers wanting to make a few pennies from advertising, but there are easier ways to get rich.

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[Petersko]

Not always. I've inherited family recipes that were barely shopping lists, and were useless because of lost tribal knowledge. My late grandmothers tourtierre recipe said "one onion" (no specifics) and had a step that said "cook until done".

A well written recipe is a wonderful thing.

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[pjt33]

"Cook until done" is nicely futureproofed. If you're not writing for publication you don't really need to consider gas vs electric-without-fan vs electric-with-fan ovens. And in the real world "180C at 50 minutes" usually needs adjusting anyway because of differences in air flow, poor calibration, etc.

It has an expiry date.

[Tyr07]

Only so many people can post so many recipes and have it have value. Yes, I get it, your dreams is to make tons of ad money posting your recipe and think it's amazing because you put two pinches of salt instead of none.

There is a limited amount of space, everyone wants in it, and it will turn to shit. Enshittification is real, and in many cases, unavoidable. You want to do it, so does everyone else, the value in it drops as people get more desperate to do X thing, everyone keeps 'undercutting' each other, or reposting redundant crap.

Perfect example is youtube videos of someone elses content by just cutting in half, and inserting them above the video so now it's a "review". Nothing creative, no new content, just the same content but everyone wants a piece of the pie, and it gets shittified.

The same thing happens with food recipes. Everyone wants "their recipe" even if it's the same as someone else.

Film at 11

[Gleenie]

Advertising Company ends trial of service which may reduce Advertising Sales. Shocking news indeed.

Just the recipe

[thegarbz]

This is the most important site for anyone who looks up recipes online: https://www.justtherecipe.com/ [justtherecipe.com] Strips all the bullshit and puts the recipe on one page.

That said it does have some funny coding bugs when doing unit conversions, however it shouldn't affect the recipe too much if you use 0.666666668653488 cups of red wine instead of 2/3rd :-)