To not understand what the BBC is planning re:The BBC food web stuff

[wasonthelist]

On radio news they are saying that the recipes won't be removed, but "will no longer be promoted so they are easy to find". Does this mean that the BBC has been spending money on Search Engine Optimisation for BBC food?

In another story a BBC correspondent said one would still be able to find all the recipies but only if one knew the full web address.

So what they seem to be saying is that they are going to stop spending a lot of money to ensure that if I type "spag bol recipe" into Google, the BBC food one will be on page one.

Anyone know? It is starting to look like the BBC playing politics

Someone on reddit has downloaded all the recipes from the site, it's only 500mb. There is no need for the BBC to remove the recipes, 500mb isn't that much and would barely make a note on their budget.

It's not about the budget, but about the BBC competing with private companies and individuals. If these recipies are on the site, funded by what is basically a tax, how many people buy cookbooks?
It was not optimisation, but letting the pages being 'indexed' by search engines. They are basically removing the index, so unless you know exactly where to look you cannot find the page.

Well George Osbourne criticised the BBC for having recipes on their website as apparently it's unfair competition....so they're getting rid.

Think they are backtracking - and adding them to the good food website

caroldecker I don't understand how the indexing/deindexing works - I thought Google did it's indexing automatically - with the only exception being where a website deliberately hides content - am I wrong/out of date (again)?

wason Agreed, that is what the BBC plan to do, deliberately hide the content from google (other search engines are available). It is easy to do and very common.

Thanks Carol I am struggling to see how this is money saving though (which I thought they said), unless they were doing some form of SEO already. If anything, leaving the content but amending the meta data (or whatever it is) to prevent the web crawlers from seeing it would be more costly surely?

I'm not a tinfoil hatter, but something's not quite right in this picture somewhere.

You can ask search engines not to index the content on a website by adding a small file. It's a two minute job. Three if you have to Google it

It's not really about money it's about the lack of competition. The BBC is stopping other sites competing and maybe creating even better sites

If you do a search for "apple pie recipe" in Google BBC good food is the first result. BBC food is the second and third result. Massive duplication of effort as that is two independent sites to content manage and maintain

When I think of what the license fee should be spent on, multiple recipe sites is not top of my list.

Also, they don't need to pay to seo their recipe site. The size and scope of the BBC.co.uk domain, the amount of links, social links and so on built up around it means that small sites can't compete without paying money to be in pay per click.

OK, thanks folks, I am getting a better picture now.