About the brand: Allrecipes was one of the biggest winners in the SERPs for 2024 (see 2024 SERPs Winners and Losers), and that’s why I wanted to take a closer look at it.
Allrecipes has been owned by Dotdash Meredith since 2012. Some more context about the brand history was provided by Dustin Woodward, who did some pioneer SEO for the brand between 2005 and 2007!
The SEO Team: The only SEO dedicated to the brand I could find on LinkedIn is Elizabeth Laseter, who joined the company in October 2024. I’m not entirely familiar with the Dotdash organization, but I bet they have a larger chain of command.
Organic Search traffic
Looking at the long-term trend, traffic appears to have recovered to its previous peak after setbacks beginning in 2021.
- The first drop occurred in June 2021, a month marked by four Google Updates: Page Experience, Core Update and two spam updates (source: Google).
- Another drop aligned with a page experience update in February 2022.
In my experience, over-analyzing algorithm updates to pinpoint specific traffic movements is rarely relevant and often counterproductive. However, the ‘Page Experience’ updates might have played a role here. Google has excellent related guidelines to follow, and these self-assessment questions are a great start.
Answering yes to the following questions means you’re probably on track in providing a good page experience:
- Do your pages have good Core Web Vitals?
- Are your pages served in a secure fashion?
- Does your content display well on mobile devices?
- Does your content avoid using an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
- Do your pages avoid using intrusive interstitials?
- Is your page designed so visitors can easily distinguish the main content from other content on your page?
See Understanding Google Page Experience (Google)
Not having the changes history or data access, I won’t be able to answer those questions retroactively and am limited to analyzing archives.org and ahrefs/semrush traffic estimations.
Content Analysis
Looking at the top pages since 2020 already provides some valuable information:
1/ A strong brand
Traffic to the Homepage has remained relatively stable (except for 2023), suggesting a strong brand. Allrecipes is a destination brand, which I believe is one of their most significant assets.
A Search Trend comparison against their biggest SERP competitor supports the narrative:
Also, a quick Google search reveals that users are searching for recipes explicitly from Allrecipes, suggesting a base of satisfied and returning users, and implying quality content.
2/ Recovering Pages
Pages that were once driving a lot of traffic for the brand got in trouble, but they managed to turn things around.
Analysis: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/20144/banana-banana-bread/
(side note: I don’t understand why the page is called “banana banana bread”, it’s in the URL, title and images so it is not a mistake)
In 2022, the page was minimalist/efficient:
- List of ingredients
- Instructions
- Nutrition facts
- Reviews
But I guess as competition increased, it was not enough to satisfy Google (it was probably still enough for users, to be fair).
In 2023, a new template is released and features a lot more details:
- A more detailed list of ingredients
- New pictures
- A summary of the instructions (overkill and confusing IMO)
- Relevant questions (ie. How to store, can you freeze, how to make it moist etc.)
I strongly believe in prioritizing user experience to improve SERP rankings. I have direct experience restoring pages to top positions for competitive search queries by implementing UX improvements and minimal content changes.
In that case, while successful, I regret the additive approach as it didn’t significantly improve the user experience. A better approach would be to:
- Prioritize the most relevant information at the top (ingredients, directions)
- Include a clear FAQ section to tackle the common questions (no fluff)
- Remove the redundant sections and clarify the content structure. Examples of redundancies: How to make / Directions, Kitchen Tips / Community Tips / FAQ
Ultimately, the page is not easy to read and has a confusing structure:
<H1> Banana Banana Bread
<H2> Banana Bread Ingredients
<H2> How to Make Banana Bread
<H3> How to Make Banana Bread Moist
<H3> How Long to Bake Banana Bread
<H2> Test Kitchen Tips
<H2> How to Store Banana Bread
<H3> How Long Does Banana Bread Last?
<H2> Can You Freeze Banana Bread?
<H2> Allrecipes Community Tips and Praise
<H2> Ingredients
<H3> Local Offers
<H2> Directions
<H2> Nutrition Facts (per serving)
<H2> Ask the Community (23)
<H2> Reviews (13,177)
<H3> Featured Tweaks
<H2> Photos of Banana Banana Bread
<H2> You'll Also LoveThe same applies to other pages
e.g. it seems counterintuitive to start a buttercream recipe with “What is buttercream” yet it’s sadly common practice for which the SEO industry’s “good practices” are largely to blame… https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/174347/quick-and-almost-professional-buttercream-icing/
3/ Some Missed Opportunities
Several non-recipe pages, which enjoyed past success, would benefit from being reactivated.
Categories: As is, the pages bring very little added value, they could be targeting more concepts such as ‘family dinner recipes’, ‘dinner ideas’
e.g.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipes/17562/dinner/
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipes/
Cooking 101: There are so many other queries they can rank for with such an authority in cooking. A good example is that article untouched since 2022 despite its past success
https://www.allrecipes.com/article/commonly-used-measurements-equivalents/
History of positions for ‘oz to cups’
4/ Beyond the evergreens, How to Stay Current
It is critical for a brand to build its presence and visibility throughout the year. Allrecipes covers the main calendar events: Halloween, Ramadan, Super Bowl, etc.
But also covers brillantely other events that makes the website much more relatable e.g. 18 Egg-Free Cake Recipes to Make While Prices Are Skyrocketing
on top of their news section which covers recalls and freebies.
That’s surely a winning strategy in Top Stories and Google Discover.
User Experience
Overall, the website offers a great user experience:
- Ads are not too disruptive
- The ‘jump to’ buttons (jump to recipes / nutrition fact) make up for the debatable structure
- Browsing the gallery is easy
- They include video recipes by their test Kitchen
- Extra features for printing, cook mode, local offers etc.
Leading with innovation A true leader guides the market, and innovation is a powerful way to do so because it requires investments only a few are willing to make. Innovations are also a good way to create PR and attract new consumers.
How can a recipe website innovate, you may wonder… During my research, I found that analysis on Reddit for banana bread recipes, which, unfortunately, is symptomatic of today’s publishing industry.
What’s interesting is the author is suggesting a solution and has published a fantastic concept for recipes: Flowchart cookbook
We need a website!
Technical Hygiene
I only crawled the first 10K URLs with Screaming Frog.
99.4% of the status codes are 200, which is very impressive. I would have expected at least more redirects, given the age of the website.
Robots.txt: a common mistake, noindex pages that are blocked by the robots.txt
e.g. https://www.allrecipes.com/cook/17348674/collection/62d9cc29-73c9-3f8b-a635-f4ee0de965ff
https://www.allrecipes.com/cook/3154470/collection/all-saved-recipes
If Google robots are not allowed to access the page, they won’t be able to acknowledge the ‘noindex’, resulting in that kind of results “No information is available for this page”
Suggestion: Simply removing the robots.txt instructions would help Google actually noindexing them and learn to ignore them in the future. Not urgent but cleaner.
Taxonomies and (near) Duplicate Titles:
Few duplicated titles could indicate a non-strict enough management of the categories;
e.g. Title: Authentic Mexican Recipes
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipes/1470/world-cuisine/latin-american/mexican/authentic/
https://www.allrecipes.com/gallery/best-authentic-mexican-recipes/
could even be cannibalizing the categories https://www.allrecipes.com/recipes/728/world-cuisine/latin-american/mexican/ (title:”Mexican Recipes”)
Suggestion: Just by looking at the breadcrumbs, they don’t appear to have a strict logic and a ‘chicken’ dish could randomly be classified as ‘dinner>bowl’ or ‘meat and poultry>chicken>chicken tighs’. (probably with a ‘main category’)
I bet it was ideated a long time ago and barely evolved with the website. It’s a major project but maybe it would be worth revamping it with a more flexible solution by removing most of the not so useful hierarchies and treat categories as tags.
Part of the project would be to consolidate recipes whenever it makes sense. e.g. Which “french toast recipe” is the most relevant and should rank first? Not hinting Google is letting them decide for you and that’s not a gamble I’m usually willing to take.
In its current state, the current category page is not creating enough value to rank. https://www.allrecipes.com/recipes/149/breakfast-and-brunch/french-toast/
It could use filters and sorting to help users navigate their best content, feature more prominently the best recipes, the easiest, etc.
maybe target the ‘best french toast recipes’ in the title so it doesn’t compete with other pages?
Below all the pages that ranked for ‘french toast recipe’ in the past 2 years. That’s a lot of movements.
Another hint at their overlooked taxonomies, we can find instances where they link multiple times to the same pages:
e.g. https://www.allrecipes.com/recipes/272/us-recipes/cajun-and-creole/ (see Explore US Recipes)
same here: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipes/1203/everyday-cooking/slow-cooker/main-dishes/chicken/
Core Web Vitals
No problem here.
Closing Thoughts
Allrecipes provides a really solid experience and has built a great reputation over time. It’s no surprise they’re doing so well, and I’d bet they’ll stay on top for a long time (unless Google decides to integrate recipes into AIO).
Their content strategy is spot-on, and their technical SEO is more than decent.
The few fixes and suggestions I made are minor and would only help strengthen their already strong base or just ease the mind of an OCD SEO.
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