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Show HN: OnlyRecipe.app – Remove clutter from recipe sites

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Re: Show HN: OnlyRecipe.app – Remove clutter from recipe sites

#31

Post by rjzzleep »

2bitencryption wrote: post #11

What is the reason that every single recipe site, without fail, follows this same horrible pattern? I.e. the twenty paragraph "When I was a child growing up in Atlanta..." followed by a crappy in-house video player followed by, finally, the actual recipe? My assumption is SEO? For some reason, Google must really like having tons of text on your page, and dislikes simple "here's the recipe"? etc? Second question - any…

1. SEO. I've been recommended to have a ghostwriter write technical articles for me to increase my client base. Build enough of a cult following and you can be sure that your youtube channel, or next book has enough of an audience.

2. I think it also appeals to a certain audience. It makes them feel open minded to other cultures. There's an emotional bond forming with the story or the people in the story.

Don't forget that the average american speaks only one language, yet considers themselves as part of the country that is creating/keeping world peace and that at the same time the average american consumer spends more on average on consumer goods per capita than any other nation in the world. Add to that, that ad revenue is the US is also disproportionately higher than anywhere else.

Re: Show HN: OnlyRecipe.app – Remove clutter from recipe sites

#32

Post by nerdjon »

2bitencryption wrote: post #11

What is the reason that every single recipe site, without fail, follows this same horrible pattern? I.e. the twenty paragraph "When I was a child growing up in Atlanta..." followed by a crappy in-house video player followed by, finally, the actual recipe? My assumption is SEO? For some reason, Google must really like having tons of text on your page, and dislikes simple "here's the recipe"? etc? Second question - any…

My best possible guesses (note, not really based on any research into it but just theories).

- The ones that I have noticed do this, also tend to have a lot of ads. So maybe to both be able to show more ads (there is a limit of how many ads you can show if you just have a simple recipe, but add a book above it and you can show many more). Maybe also the ability to add referral links to talked about products?

- It seems like some of them are trying to build a community. They do the whole "tell me about your experience" thing that only generates more page views and "interaction". So maybe there are people that actually follow these blogs and feel like all of that story is personal?

- I am sure there is some SEO stuff going on here like others have said.

Re: Show HN: OnlyRecipe.app – Remove clutter from recipe sites

#33

Post by sct202 »

For people who don't want to install an app, most recipe websites have a "Jump/Skip to Recipe" link at the top under the header and sometimes it's mixed up in between the fb/twitter share buttons. You still get hit with modals and videos but at least it's less.

Re: Show HN: OnlyRecipe.app – Remove clutter from recipe sites

#34

Post by nucleogenesis »

Some blogs do the extra stuff right. Sally’s Baking Addiction’s preceding blog is often invaluable with tips about timing, temperatures, possible places things can go wrong, etc.

It has the floating “skip to recipe” button which is handy when you come back to a familiar recipe for some details.

The clutter isn’t the problem as much as the content quality is most often for me.

Re: Show HN: OnlyRecipe.app – Remove clutter from recipe sites

#35

Post by thepratt »

switzer wrote: post #10

Since OnlyRecipe.app is already parsing the recipe site, it would be a great feature to allow conversion to weights from volume (e.g. show 120g of flour vs. 1c of flour). Also, allow someone to double (or 1.5x...) the recipe as well, and have all measures double in the recipe!

Being able to tell if it's a US or non-US cup for conversions is something that would be great too. I first look for grams/oz/other as units, then fall back to primary intended audience/publisher being American or not.

Re: Show HN: OnlyRecipe.app – Remove clutter from recipe sites

#36

Post by patrickserrano »

Mela on iOS[0] is a very similar app with some great polish. One nice thing with Mela at least, is if you use the built-in browser it can get around some paywalls like NYT Cooking. It also integrates with the Reminders app for grocery shopping lists.

[0]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mela-recipe-manager/id15484660...

Re: Show HN: OnlyRecipe.app – Remove clutter from recipe sites

#37

Post by password1 »

2bitencryption wrote: post #11

What is the reason that every single recipe site, without fail, follows this same horrible pattern? I.e. the twenty paragraph "When I was a child growing up in Atlanta..." followed by a crappy in-house video player followed by, finally, the actual recipe? My assumption is SEO? For some reason, Google must really like having tons of text on your page, and dislikes simple "here's the recipe"? etc? Second question - any…

It's SEO. Once a SEO expert was showing me user heatmaps on his popular website's articles. The users completely ignored 90% of the content and of the text of a page. I asked him why so many parts of the text were ignored by the users and his answer was "oh, that text is not for the users, it's for google". The literally paid writers to write articles way longer than needed solely to satisfy Google algorithms. The worst part is that it worked and they earned a lot of money from it.

Re: Show HN: OnlyRecipe.app – Remove clutter from recipe sites

#38

Post by logifail »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #14
logifail wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Authors do it to get high ranking on Google [..] I believe it's more likely that it's to do with whether you can or can't copyright a listing of ingredients and method. If you add enough of a story, you definitely can.

No. As somebody who pays recipe creators and publishes recipes this is just wrong. The recipe is separate from the text that accompanies it

> The recipe is separate from the text that accompanies it

Separate in a copyright sense?

A web scraping bot won't necessarily make that distinction.

Re: Show HN: OnlyRecipe.app – Remove clutter from recipe sites

#39

Post by gamerDude »

password1 wrote: post #37
2bitencryption wrote: post #11

What is the reason that every single recipe site, without fail, follows this same horrible pattern? I.e. the twenty paragraph "When I was a child growing up in Atlanta..." followed by a crappy in-house video player followed by, finally, the actual recipe? My assumption is SEO? For some reason, Google must really like having tons of text on your page, and dislikes simple "here's the recipe"? etc? Second question - any…

It's SEO. Once a SEO expert was showing me user heatmaps on his popular website's articles. The users completely ignored 90% of the content and of the text of a page. I asked him why so many parts of the text were ignored by the users and his answer was "oh, that text is not for the users, it's for google". The literally paid writers to write articles way longer than needed solely to satisfy Google algorithms. The wo…

If this is true. Is there any harm in putting the recipe at the top and the story below?

Re: Show HN: OnlyRecipe.app – Remove clutter from recipe sites

#40

Post by gamerDude »

gamerDude wrote: post #23
mirthturtle wrote: post #9

Someone tried this a while back and it didn't go so well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/03/02/recipeasly-fo...

Maybe keep ads so that the bloggers can keep their current revenue stream. As someone who loves this idea, all I care about is easy access to the recipe. Its ok with me to have not too intrusive ads.

Or just move the recipe to the top and keep all the other content/ads below.
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