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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

#61

Post by floatrock »

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…

Because "Recipes" are one of about a dozen categories for which google defines special Structure Data formats, which allows presumably-high-clickthrough results page features like the rich media carousel previews, etc. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structure...

If you want to know what categories of things will have especially horrendous (ie clickbait-optimized-to-hell) results, look at the other things that google encourages developers to semantically tag and compete for use of the shiny results page features. A couple interesting ones:

  Ecommerce (monetizable sales):
  - Books
  - Review snippet
  - Software app
  - Events
  
  Google Maps data ingestion:
  - Local Business
  
  Youtube previews:
  - Video
  - Movie
  
  Job search:
  - Employer Aggregate Rating
  - Estimated salary
  - Job Posting
  
  Knowledge graph:
  - COVID-19 announcements (ooo, topical!)
  - Dataset
  - FAQ
  - Fact Check
Recipes are something that people who search for recipes do several times a week, so the algorithms identified this as a Thing with High DAU's. Semantic tags then makes it easier to identify "this is a recipe page", but that means for such a crowded category it's a race to the bottom with optimization and ad-stuffing (more life story == more inline ad blocks).

Unfortunately, it's against google's interest to promote to-the-point recipe pages that have fewer embedded AdWords blocks.

Projects like OP probably just parse out the semantic tags and throw away the rest of the content. This could easily be a browser extension.

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

#62

Post by geocar »

AwkwardPanda wrote: post #53
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!

Thanks for the feedback. I'll see if that conversion can be done in a generic way.

I was taught to bake (and write recipes) using a mixture of units; to prefer metric measurements when precision is required, but to prefer "American" units when it isn't, almost to highlight the absence of precision, and to clue the reader that they may have to adjust for humidity or the amount of gluten generated (or whatever).

I know this stuff is obvious to an experienced cook, but I can also imagine seeing 14,2g of anything causing some unnecessary distress when trying to work with an unfamiliar recipe.

Maybe something like "1c of flour (approx. 120g)" is a good way to be safe?

If you're looking for an engine for actually doing the conversions, there's GNU units[1] and Frink[2] which both contain databases of these conversions you may be able to mine.

[1]: https://www.gnu.org/software/units/

[2]: https://frinklang.org/

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

#63

Post by shoulderfake »

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…

Man I was wondering this same thing. Every single stupid recipe site is just terrible ux. Just show the recipe we don't care about the story.

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

#64

Post by Hard_Space »

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...

From the WP article:

But it’s even more complex than that. The stories are personal. They’re cultural. They’re often told from the perspective of women, immigrants and people of color who have created and invested in a platform to share their stories. The recipe aggregator sites, bloggers note, basically tell the creators that their stories have no value. It’s the same message America has told immigrants and women for centuries, now just in electronic form.

I think that may be taking it too far, particularly since Google effectively created this entire syndrome.

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

#65

Post by hiptobecubic »

rjzzleep wrote: post #31
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 forge…

I have literally never met anyone express (2). Any time anyone needs a recipe site they immediately start complaining about it, unprompted.

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

#67

Post by parkersweb »

asow92 wrote: post #8

reminds me of https://www.paprikaapp.com/

Yeah - there’s some really lovely touches to Paprika - like:

- easily scale the recipe to make different quantities

- convert units used to one you’re more familiar with.

- wherever the recipe says ‘do x for 10 minutes’ you can tap on the time and it’ll allow you to set a timer for that one piece.

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

#68

Post by shoulderfake »

csa wrote: post #57
gamerDude wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> If this is true. Is there any harm in putting the recipe at the top and the story below? From an SEO perspective, yes. Time spent on page will be less if the recipe is on the top.

Such bs. I rarely spend more than 20s on a recipe page anyways. I scroll quickly to find ingredients box and thats it. Done...

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

#69

Post by hellweaver666 »

AwkwardPanda wrote: post #53
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!

Thanks for the feedback. I'll see if that conversion can be done in a generic way.

As a metric user, imperial format recipes are the bane of my existence. I swear to god some Americans don't realise the rest of the world uses a whole other system.

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

#70

Post by duckmysick »

JonathanBuchh wrote: post #30

It would be amazing if there was something that would convert recipes to the format used on Cooking For Engineers. It’s so intuitive and easy to read. I never want to look at steps to make a recipe again. Scroll to the bottom to see what I’m talking about: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/108/Banana-Nut-Bre...

Modernist Cuisine has recipes with a similar format. They also have an ingredient list with baker's percentage using the largest ingredient by weight as the baseline.

Example (second image) https://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/pressure-cooked-vegetab...

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