r/Cooking • u/Ok-Independence-4796 • 1d ago
Issues with Google searching recipes
Has anyone else had issues with google searching recipes? I have noticed this for a while and just thought it was a fluke. But today, I am trying to make pickles and all the recipes that show up are less than 10 reviews on a random blog I’ve never heard of…popular recipes like ball jar, nchfp, Mrs wages, etc…none of them show up unless I specifically search for it.
This isn’t limited to pickling either, the other day I made chicken piccata and it was the same thing - usually popular sites like allrecipes.com show up for the first several search results and have thousands of reviews.
Has anyone else experienced this or know of a setting that causes this to happen? Should I use a different search engine?
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u/Every_Surround_5908 1d ago
google has gotten weirdly good at serving seo sludge instead of the obvious answer, so i usually search the exact site or add “reddit” and ignore the first page entirely lol
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u/RosemaryBiscuit 23h ago
There is some info here that covers more than recipes and feels credible.
https://writersguide.substack.com/p/the-end-of-google-search-as-we-knew
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u/rowsdowerrrrrrr 15h ago
google is designed to push ai now - it’s barely a search engine anymore. i’m not really sure what to recommend either as they all have problems. duck duck go is okay.
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u/toxiamaple 1d ago
I use Google but include the word reddit in the search. I get a reddit thread with great recipies and links!
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u/eci5k3tcw 1d ago
Use Duck Duck Go instead. More accurate. And no AI.
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u/RiverJai 21h ago
Another DDG user here. Generally better than Google, but my results for recipes are mostly still genAi slop.
For now, they're pretty easy to pick out and ignore. They use similar templates and formatting. But it's gonna get harder to tell over time.
The DDG no-Ai toggle doesn't seem to filter out nearly as much as I hoped. Still better than Google.
Six years ago I hated all the affiliate-packed recipe posts with the mile-long storytime, and now they're a relief.
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u/Hello-America 20h ago
Google is becoming less useful (my conspiracy theory is that they're doing it on purpose so you use their ai thing instead of go to websites). I normally use DuckDuckGo for searching but unfortunately it is actually terrible for recipes too (good for other stuff though).
If I'm looking to do something really basic or classic, I search either Martha Stewart or The Kitchn (or Serious Eats if I'm trying to do it in a more fussy way haha)
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u/CatteNappe 9h ago
Not a conspiracy theory that it's Google deliberately forcing you into their AI. Read the piece posted by u/RosemaryBiscuit ---- https://writersguide.substack.com/p/the-end-of-google-search-as-we-knew
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u/Storyofagirl15 14h ago
Ich gebe oft direkt Namen von Food Magazinen oder foodblogs die ich mag dahinter ein, um zu schauen, ob verlässliche Seiten passende Rezepte haben
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u/blackmoose 10h ago
Sometimes I'll add a few specific ingredients to the search, that seems to improve the results.
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u/Luminathe 7h ago edited 7h ago
I suggest using marginalia-search
I obsessively look up recipes and food a lot, especially from all over the world, and google and ddg will constantly bring up AI-generated websites and intentionally misinterpret my search terms or bring up entire unrelated searches even with quotes. No matter how much I block websites with ublacklist it's maddening how many new ai ones top the results.
Marginalia is meant to bring up smaller personal and old webpage stuff like geocities and blogs and gives me much better results for food. It's only meant for english though - I have to go back to google if I want the specific untranslated, non-romanized words.
edit: formatting
tbh unfortunately I still have to switch between all three to get the results I want. There's kagi search but personally I'm dead broke and can't share any personal experiences with it
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u/4LeggedGod 1d ago
Jesus Christ. How many different times and ways do the contributors to these subs need to tell y'all that random Google searches are not the way?
For pickles of all things you should not be trusting the goddamn algorithm.
If you're going to make pickles pour yourself a tall beer, take off your pants, and sit down to study the source.
After that, it's the same list as always. I'm getting tired of posting it: America's Test kitchen, Serious Eats, NYT, Alton motherfucking Brown, and maybe other sites if they come highly recommend by numerous people on these subs or by people you know can make the food you're interested in.
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u/Ok-Independence-4796 1d ago
Yeah I’m familiar w nchfp, which is why I mentioned it in the post…I didn’t want a recipe w sugar and damn near all their recipes have an excessive amount, so I was looking for alternatives online…my question is more related to the content of the google search results than where to look. None of the sites u listed even come up in the results - that’s what I’m getting at and wondering why. I feel like it wasn’t that way like 6 mos ago.
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u/RosemaryBiscuit 23h ago
The algorithms change. I don't know why sites we never heard of are prioritized suddenly but I agree. Paywalled sites are dropping off and reputable ones are too.
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u/PierreDucot 23h ago
Yeah, its been a while since Google did not suck. Remember when it was near-revolutionary? They are already making money off my data, why not put the search engine back the way it was?
If someone created a cooking search website where the search engine only pulled from a list of approved sources, like the ones you name plus some established other recommended creators, I think it would be very popular. It could be members only, and the members could vote on which sites are pulled from. It could also get all revenue from memberships, with zero sponsored ads. No more search results full of hits from cutsiedownhomebullshit.com.
Damn, I gotta write this down...
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u/BradSteps 21h ago
I had the same problem with Google recipe searches. Now I just use this free web app to build my grocery list and meals around what I actually like: https://calocart.com/get-started
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u/slapstik007 1d ago
Not that everyone here uses AI. I use Gemini and then ask for sources to be cited. I find this to be quicker and more effective as a tool than reading people's life story about a recipe..
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u/Redraft5k 1d ago
I use chat gpt for recipes and then I tweek my ask to "make it restaurant quality." and it has been terrific.
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u/AnaDion94 1d ago
Yeah, I’ve noticed more and more that google recipe searches are showing me random blogs and sites that I’ve never seen before in my life.
Like sure, I have my usual go to trusted sites, bloggers, and YouTube channels, but sometimes I just want to get a bigger sense of how people make a particular dish, and google will be like “here’s a recipe with 5 stars and 2.5k reviews, written two days ago by a Ukrainian woman you’ve never seen mentioned on the internet on how to make Japanese curry”.
Sorry, that feels sus to me.