By Jack Peat

Why is it so darn hard to find a recipe without the incessant guff these days? 

Earlier this month Kathryn Watson, a reporter for CBS News, posted a concern that will have likely irked anyone who has ever used Google to search for the perfect meal. 

“I hate recipes on the Internet”, she said. “I do not care about your cute little story and pictures. Just tell me the ingredients and how I’m supposed to turn them into deliciousness.” 

We feel her pain, right? 

Ever since foodie bloggers and gastro mags exploded on the internet we have been bombarded with alluring meal ideas which require you to navigate a barrage of nonsensical info before you get to anything remotely useful. 

As actor Mickey White said in response to Watson’s grumble, “my favourite link on all Foodie blogs is “Jump To The Recipe””, which is surely one of the most utilised shortcuts on the internet right now. 

Content-heavy approach 

But the bloggers are not to blame for the infuriating scroll-frenzy that has become the scourge of most recipe searches; Google is. 

A simple look through the recommended properties on its developer page will tell you all you need to know. 

Some 20 elements should be incorporated in any recipe page to make it rank highly in search, many of which require a fully fleshed-out piece of writing to incorporate, which is why most foodie sites are adopting a content-heavy approach. 

Structured data for rich results 

It’s something that is worth bearing in mind for any site that could benefit from structured data as a means of enhancing its search visibility. 

Structured data is increasingly being used by Google to display rich results and better understand the web page itself.

It’s the reason recipe results display with a rating, calorie count, cooking time and a text snippet in search, and you can build that out across several disciplines if you adhere to Google’s guidelines.

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