BBC website recipes

[Brieandstilton]

Morning,

Anybody else going to have to screen shot a lot of recipes before the BBC takes them off their website? I'd better get started!

One thing I'm a little unsure of though, does it include the BBC Goof Food website? I'm not sure it does, but if it does, I'll be staying up all night to save them!

I guess the Tories are aware people spend less when they cook from scratch, and the better the recipes, the more people are motivated to cook. Just another way to line the pockets of their mates in the processed food industry. Arseholes.

No, no, no, no, no! It can't go! I did hear rumours, but presumed they were unfounded.

I'm a truly terrible cook and the BBC Food basic recipes are just about the only ones I can rely on to turn out edible. I wish that was an exaggeration, but it's not.

Let's hope MN or better still, a non profit organisation can save them and keep them online.

"90% + of people go to BBC recipes via Google Search. It's being removed from Google search. Virtually no-one will use the archived pages because they are going from Google."

Why are you making things up?

The BBC already has millions of archived pages, and Google finds them perfectly.

This is just bollocks.

If you search, for example, for 'eric's parkin shropshire', you will find a BBC archived page for that recipe.

Nothing is being lost.

Nothing will be hard to find.

Nobody needs to write down any URLs on the back of an envelope.

The best thing about the website is typing in random ingredients and seeing what recipes it throws up.

"I guess the Tories are aware people spend less when they cook from scratch, and the better the recipes, the more people are motivated to cook. Just another way to line the pockets of their mates in the processed food industry. Arseholes."

Bollocks.

(a) None of the recipes are disappearing
(b) Even if they did (which is NOT the case), it wouldn't be any more difficult to google 'steak and kidney pie' or 'risotto' than it was before. It would not stop anyone cooking anything, given that there are tens of millions of recipes available on the internet, and given that the BBC's recipe website is certainly not the be all and end all (there is no rating or comment facility, for example).

It's not the 'be all and end all' but it's far superior to other recipe databases out there such as epicurious, allrecipes et al.

And it's the database element that's key. Typing in two or three ingredients and seeing what it suggests.

Thanks for posting that petition link digitalmummy. Signed!

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/130334

It's shocking that the Tories are trying to smash up the BBC and put their own people into its governance.

Unfortunately there are about as many petitions on the Parliament website against BBC recipe access changes as there are useful BBC recipes which might slightly cock things up.

(I also signed the 38 degrees one on this topic which seems to be doing well but it's not going to result in a Parliamentary debate automatically...)

Ooh good for MN!

Can I ask specifically that you ensure the written recipes from I Can Cook are on there?

Annoying though it is, not all the recipes are anywhere except buried in the BBC Food vaults (some are on fancy printable PDFs on Cbeebies website but many are just on BBC Food). The programme would be totally unusable and my DS would be heartbroken without these recipes.

I am not sure the recipes will be that easy to find using Google after this happens. The spokesperson (I forget who) on the BBC news this evening said they wouldn't disappear but that "you will still be able to find them if you know the exact web address ". Which suggests to me that a search won't find them... it is possible to request pages be removed from Google's indexing, so they can't be found in a search, I've had to do it.

I think he was just saying they wouldnt be linked from the BBC website.

Unless he explicitly said they would be blocked from Google, it's unreasonable to assume that they would, as the BBC already have many archived websites, and NONE are blocked from Google.

Well, I'm confused now. I took that to mean you would need the exact URL (e.g. from a previous visit to that page) i.e. you wouldn't be able to google them. He didn't explicitly say they'd be removed from google but surely they must be aware that googling is how most people get to the recipes and so knowing the url is not what people normally do? And this was a BBC spokesperson, not someone just speculating...

If it's a commercial decision (about competition with commercial sites) that may give them a reason to actually remove them from Google's indexing, which they probably wouldn't bother to do with other pages that are just old and archived, so are still findable? Why can't they just give us some clear information???

I'm guessing that the reason they are being 'removed' is BECAUSE of search. Recipes are one of the most searched for things online - in the early days of content marketing, many companies would stick a recipe section on their website to boost traffic by organic search, regardless if what they sold actually made sense alongside recipes. It's a competitive advantage - BBC's recipes dominate search, if you look. Because it's great, well-used, high value content. So they're getting rid of it. It all makes perfect sense. No, really...

The BBC have said they are removing them from search - this means that Google WON'T be able to find them. No search engine will. People will have to write URLs on the back of an envelope, mamamea, if they like that recipe.

Archiving content is completely different from blocking. My understanding is that the pages will have noindex meta tags.

Not impressed with Justine's apparent offer to host the recipes on mumsnet - my DH does all the cooking here. Not very "gender equality" assuming its mums who cook.

I don't think Justine was assuming it's mum's that cook. I think she was offering to host the recipes on her website, which is called mumsnet. Your DH will be allowed to use it! Or will he not want to...?

Gah!! Some of my recipes are published on there! scuttles off to screenshot

Why can't your DH use Mumsnet Bonnie?

It's virtually all being merged into the BBC good food website, so there's only one website to maintain rather than two - hosting two always seemed a waste of time and effort to me anyway. From what I can make out that's always been the plan, whereas some other BBC web services are being cut completely

This is the best recipe website I have ever found. Because they are rated by people actually using them, I can very easily find recipes that will work well. Every other website is a bit hit and miss. Everything I have ever made from this site that has good ratings, has turned out brilliantly. Gutted.

And the poster who says that you can still google particular recipes and find them, misses the point. I doubt that is how most people use the recipe site. I use it when I don't know what to make. In particular for people coming over. I can't google a particular recipe, as I do not know what I am going to make. Instead I look through the top rated recipes under a particular section, and chose something that it is not to difficult to make. It is the best designed recipe site on the internet.
And sorry mumsnet, I have never used your recipe section.

Place marking. Can't rtft at the moment but will do.

Very ungracious Bonnie. MNers lament loss of BBC Recipes, Justine offers to host.... Where's the assumption in that?

I agree: I use the BBC when I have some ingredients but don't know what to cook. And know that it won't be some crack pot blog recipe.
VERY sorry to see it go.

I don't understand why the BBC can not continue it and seek advertising so it funds itself?