The Endless Rant

If you’ve ever searched for a recipe online, you’ve probably experienced the same frustration.

You want a simple chocolate chip cookie recipe. Instead, you’re greeted with a 2,000-word story about the author’s grandmother, a family vacation to Vermont, the history of wheat cultivation, and a detailed account of how the recipe became a holiday tradition.

By the time you finally reach the ingredient list, you’ve scrolled past enough text to fill several pages of a novel.

Many people assume food bloggers write this way because they enjoy telling long stories. While some certainly do, the real reason is much more practical: Google.

The Early Days of Recipe Websites

In the early days of the internet, many recipe websites were little more than digital index cards. A recipe might consist of a title, a list of ingredients, and a few cooking instructions.

Thousands of websites could publish nearly identical recipes for dishes such as lasagna, brownies, or roast chicken. Google had difficulty determining which page offered the most value to users because the content was often almost identical.

Many SEO professionals believed longer content tended to rank better, which encouraged publishers to create more extensive articles. Google claims it is to separate the copy and paste stuff and provide the readers with better qualified material. However, those of us that see the search result know we have to sort through useless information to get to what we were originally searching.

Why More Words Often Rank Better

Google’s goal is to deliver the most useful result for a search query. A recipe page that contains only ingredients and instructions may answer one question, but Search Engines believe users often have many more.

They may want to know:

• What substitutions work?
• How should leftovers be stored?
• Can the recipe be frozen?
• Why did the sauce separate?
• What type of pan works best?
• How long will it keep in the refrigerator?

A detailed article can answer all of these questions on a single page.

That is the theory, yet we still find more information about the writer’s family, their vacation, or whatever other subject they use to pad the article. As artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into search algorithms, perhaps someday the fluff will finally be weeded out of the results.

Advertising Changed the Incentives

Another major factor is advertising revenue.

Most food blogs earn money through display advertisements. The longer visitors remain on a page, the more ads they see and the more advertising impressions are generated.

A page containing 2,500 words naturally requires more scrolling and more time on site than a recipe card containing 150 words.

This created a financial incentive for publishers to expand their content. A longer article could potentially attract more search traffic while also increasing ad revenue.

For many independent bloggers, those advertising earnings help cover recipe testing, photography equipment, website hosting, and countless hours spent creating content.

Google Claims it Doesn’t Actually Require Life Stories

One common opinion is that Google specifically demands personal stories before a recipe.

The company states that the belief is false. If that were true, why are those stories usually ranked within the top ten of a search?

Google believes it rewards helpful content. They also believe modern search guidance increasingly emphasizes quality and usefulness over sheer word count. Despite Google’s stated goals, many users would argue that search results still reward content that feels unnecessarily padded.

Why the Trend Continues

Despite changing search algorithms, lengthy recipe posts remain common because they continue to offer several advantages:

• More opportunities to rank for related search terms.
• More advertising inventory.
• Better chances of answering user questions.
• Additional opportunities to demonstrate expertise.
• Increased engagement metrics.

For food bloggers whose income depends on search traffic, these benefits are difficult to ignore.

The Future of Online Recipes

Many recipe websites have responded to user complaints by adding “Jump to Recipe” buttons that allow readers to skip directly to the ingredients and instructions. My goal is simple: provide the recipe first, followed by techniques, explanations, and troubleshooting for those who want them. Readers should never have to fight through unnecessary content to find what they came for.

Eventually, search engines will become better at understanding content quality, reducing the need for excessive filler text.

I realize there are many people who enjoy detailed explanations of every step and how those steps affect the final result. As my writing skills get better, stronger explanations will happen. I have no intention of adding filler content simply to improve search rankings.

On a final note, there will never be a bunch of advertisements thrown into the text. Personally, I find it VERY annoying. The site will be formatted in a useful way for my kitchen. If you have read this far, my hope is they now understand why site writer’s toss in the extra wording. It is also my hope that you understand why this site is structured the way it is.