[pjc50]

Having thought about this and my own use of cookbooks as loose inspiration rather than actually to follow in detail, I have come to the conclusion that the "fluff" is what most of the recipe-reading public want. In particular, the fluff has value even if you never cook the recipe! Which saves a lot of time and inconvenience on your part while still giving the same warm fluffy feelings.

Actual "I have these things and want to cook something" could practically be automated.

The big exception is baking, where precision ratios and time matters a lot.

(I'm also reminded of various stories of people trying to trace the origins of much loved family recipes and then discovering that rather than being an authentic traditional Calabrian whatever, their grandmother copied it off the back of a tin. I'm fairly sure my own grandmother's cookies recipe is from Tate&Lyle)

[dvtrn]

I have come to the conclusion that the "fluff" is what most of the recipe-reading public want.

I've often heard the prevailing reason why this happens on the web is because of SEO and 'bounce rates'. More time spent on the site improves ranking, so the actual recipe is pushed below the fold so users have to scroll down thereby adding more time on the site.

Have often wondered if any SEO wonks with the inside baseball can actually validate this?

[MandieD]

I've also read that it's to do with copyright - the recipes themselves can't be copyrighted, but the text around them can. Scraper republishes your ingredients list: not a lot you can do. Scraper republishes your fluffy anecdote and pictures: BLAMMO!

[nonbirithm]

Except the whole reason this article on scraping recipe sites was written was to ignore the fluff. Forcing copyright this way doesn't sound particularly helpful when the fluffy anecdote has so little value in comparison to the recipe. Or is it really the case that the average reader wants the anecode secondary to the recipe?

It feels like people are trying to make money around information that is fundamentally impractical to make money off of, so they're forced into doing whatever it takes to make money off of it anyway. "Whatever it takes" is defined by Google yet ruins the user experience, and so that is why recipe sites are this way.

[mattkrause]

I mostly like the pre-recipe text on Smitten Kitchen.

Sometimes it's a little rambling, but there's often useful information about the recipe that follows, like shortcuts that seem like they should work, but don't. She includes some interesting links or background, and getting a bite-sized glimpse of someone else's life isn't the worst thing.

[anticsapp]

I can't validate this but have been told this by multiple authors and SEO professionals. So it's anecdotal. One blogger apologized to me and told me she was embarrassed doing it but it's an industry practice. She explained it's because other recipe sites use automated scraping tools and republish their recipes in an effort to outrank original authors. The personal fluff helps slow them down. Also, a lot of recipes are bullshit, they manually steal them from elsewhere and change a few variables to evade copyright claims. Although, I guess changing a few variables is how cuisines evolve.

[kevinmchugh]

Recipes aren't copyrightable. It's bad manners to copy and republish one without attribution, but not illegal.

The introductory fluff is copyrightable, and that's one reason for it.

[logfromblammo]

Photographs, videos, or drawings of recipes in progress are copyrightable, and usually more helpful. Furthermore, they provide evidence that the recipe is actually viable.

That's why you shouldn't expect to make a cent from creating a new recipe, unless you have a chef and photographer/artist lined up, or own your own restaurant chain.

[AnonC]

Thanks. This makes sense. I was wondering what these fluff pieces have to do with SEO, because surely the search engines aren’t monitoring all users and how long they spend on each page in order to rank the usefulness of the content in their search results.

Bounce rates and how long a visitor stays on a page matter for those who own the sites and/or do some sort of marketing on them (ads, their own products, their services, etc.).

[dvtrn]

because surely the search engines aren’t monitoring all users and how long they spend on each page in order to rank the usefulness of the content in their search results.

Probably not the search engines, but I could imagine this being a thing that goes into Google Analytics if an online recipe property is using that (or if their blogging platform has a plugin for it) maybe? Just spitballing from the hip.

[greglindahl]

Yes, search engines monitor result clicks, bounce rates, dwell times, etc. They do affect ranking. And if you have Google analytics on your recipe site, Google has even more data about it.

[XCSme]

Are you implying that having Google Analytics on your page increases your Google ranking?

[greglindahl]

I don't know. I've always thought it should, and as a search engine CTO, I'd use the data that way. But I have no evidence either way.

[C1sc0cat]

I have done lot of work on cocktails (major brand) and they key is the structured mark-up we are trying some tests on longer form listings ie >200 words.

I think that food is much more dispersed apart from super stars like Nigella, Jamie and the BBC so its harder for the average food blogger.

Also don't discount the target audience for these pages might not be the average developer / nh reader. Also don't discount the

[blaser-waffle]

> Also don't discount the target audience for these pages might not be the average developer / nh reader. Also don't discount the

the what? They got to him, the food bloggers did.

WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO TELL US

[WorldMaker]

Some of the best stories too have bits of the art inside of the food science anecdotes that contribute to a sense of why a particular variation on a recipe worked better for the author. Some authors have more of a sweet tooth, and others live in higher altitudes or tweak their recipes for camp stoves on hiking trips up the mountains. Some authors spend days and weeks of failures trying to get a proper balance of flour to baking soda/baking powder for just the exact sort of yeast rise they want from their dough, and others just wing it let the dough live or crumble as nature intends as it adds a little chaos to the whimsy and art of their eventual plating.

It's also the little touches of humanity that people want if they want to follow a particular food blogger. The anecdotes add up over time to a sense of following a workplace or family sitcom to follow week to week (whether they make the recipes or not). It's a daily or weekly "soap opera" ("flour opera"?) of an acquaintance or "friend" that you also like to crib recipes from from time to time.

Where these recipe bloggers have their steadiest audiences, those stories at the top of the recipe are the real draw day-to-day, and the recipes the fun addendum to bookmark for later.

[pfarrell]

It happened to me. When I quizzed my grandmother for her beloved chocolate chip cookies recipe, I felt like being entrusted with a huge family secret.

Nope. Toll House cookie recipe (which is on the back of every package) with an extra quarter cup of flour XD.

[scrozier]

I read long ago that you can/should always trust recipes printed on manufacturer's packages; after all, they've chosen them to stake their ingredients' reputations on.