What Is Recipe Schema Markup?
Most businesses will never need this. We do not work with food publishers either. It stays in this section because it is the clearest worked example of a fully specified type, which is a genuine reason to keep a page and not a commercial one.
Who This Is Actually For
Food businesses, publishers and recipe blogs. If you are none of those, this page is background reading rather than something to act on. Saying so now saves you the rest of it.
Who genuinely uses it. Three groups.
Publishers whose business is recipes, food producers publishing ways to use their products, then restaurants sharing dishes. Outside those, the type describes something you do not have.
Why we say so plainly. We have no clients here.
We work with trades, professional practices and retailers rather than food publishers, with no expectation of that changing. Presenting this as an opportunity would be pretending relevance we do not have.
Why the page exists anyway. It teaches something.
This is the most thoroughly specified type in common use, which makes it the best illustration of what the vocabulary can do. Block three covers that properly.
What we do not do. Pad it out.
This is deliberately the shortest page in the section. A guide that opens by saying most readers will never need something, then runs as long as the pages that matter commercially, has contradicted itself before the second block.
What it is not. A route in for other businesses.
A business that is not publishing recipes cannot use this type by stretching. Nothing here is adaptable to a different kind of content.
What It Asserts
Ingredients, method, times, yield and nutrition where given. Each with its own defined structure, which is what makes this type unusual among everything else in this section.
Ingredients. Listed individually.
Each item separately rather than as a paragraph, with quantities attached. That separation is what lets anything reading it work with the list rather than merely display it.
Method. Ordered steps.
The instructions in sequence, each a distinct action. Structurally similar to the step type, applied to a specific kind of task.
Times. Three of them.
Preparation, cooking and total. Stated separately because somebody deciding what to cook is answering a question about their evening rather than about the dish.
Yield. How much it makes.
Portions or quantity produced. Modest and genuinely useful, since it is the property somebody needs to scale anything.
Nutrition. Where supplied.
Energy and nutrient content per portion. Optional, being the property block five treats with more caution than the rest.
Which Makes It A Useful Example
Most types in this section are far looser than this one. Seeing a fully specified type demonstrates the range of the vocabulary. That is worth understanding even if you never use this particular one.
What loose looks like. A few properties, broadly defined.
An article has a headline, an author and some dates. An organisation has a name and contact details. Useful, though nowhere near a complete description of the thing.
What specified looks like. This.
A structure detailed enough that something reading it could scale the quantities, calculate the timing or filter by an ingredient. The description is close to being the recipe.
Why the difference matters generally. It sets expectations.
Somebody who has only seen loose types assumes markup is always a thin summary. Somebody who has only seen this one assumes every type is exhaustive. Neither is right. The range runs between them.
What determines where a type sits. How much was needed.
Types get specified to the degree that somebody had a genuine use for the detail. Recipes were described thoroughly because thorough description was actually wanted.
The transferable lesson. Check what a type actually offers.
Before assuming a type is thin or exhaustive, look at what it defines. That habit applies to every type here. This page is where the reason for it is easiest to see.
Ratings On Recipes
Recipe ratings are among the most commonly fabricated anywhere on the web. The rule is identical to everywhere else: real ratings, from real people, about the thing on that page.
Why fabrication is so common here. Ratings are expected.
Recipe results carry stars as a matter of course, so a recipe without them looks untried. That pressure produces invented ratings on new sites with no readers yet.
What the assertion claims. The same as always.
That real people cooked this and rated it, averaging that figure. A recipe nobody has made cannot have a rating, however confident the author is that it works.
The version that feels acceptable. Rating your own recipe.
An author giving their own recipe five stars because they know it is good. That is the business writing its own reviews, which the review page covers, arriving in a form that feels harmless.
What to do instead. Collect them.
Let readers rate the recipe and show what they give, including the poor scores. A mixed set is more believable than a uniform one and it is also true.
Where the full argument sits. Its own page.
Review markup sets out the four conditions and why a false rating is a serious matter rather than a shortcut.
Nutrition Claims
Asserting nutritional information is a factual claim that may carry obligations beyond search. A business should be confident in the figures before publishing them in structured form.
Why this is different from the rest. People act on it.
Somebody managing a medical condition, an allergy or a diet may rely on stated figures. That is a materially different use from deciding what to cook on a Tuesday.
Where the figures usually come from. A calculator.
Most published nutritional information is estimated from ingredient databases rather than measured. That is reasonable and it is an estimate, which the assertion does not convey.
What that means practically. Know your source.
A business asserting these figures should know how they were produced and how accurate they are. Publishing numbers you cannot account for is the same problem as any other unverified claim here.
The obligations beyond search. Not ours to rule on.
Food information is regulated, so what a business may state about its products is a question for its own advisers rather than for a guide about markup.
The conservative option. Omit it.
Nutrition is optional in this type. A publisher who is not confident in the figures is better leaving them out than asserting something approximate.
It Is Extremely Competitive
This is one of the most contested result types there is. Markup alone will not achieve anything in it, which is worth knowing before the thorough specification makes it look like an opening.
Who occupies these results. Established publishers.
Large recipe sites, broadcasters and food brands with enormous libraries and long histories. They implemented this type years ago and they are not the competition markup overcomes.
Why specification looks like opportunity. Completeness feels like advantage.
A type this detailed suggests that describing everything thoroughly will distinguish you. Everybody competing has already described everything thoroughly, so it distinguishes nobody.
What actually differentiates. The usual things.
Recipes that work, photographs that help, writing people return to and an audience that already trusts you. None of that is markup and all of it takes years.
What the markup does contribute. Eligibility.
Without it a recipe cannot be presented as one, so it remains worth implementing. It is a requirement to compete rather than a way of competing.
The realistic position. Necessary, insufficient.
Do it because it accurately describes the page, which is the reason what is schema markup gives for the whole subject. The full series is on the schema and structured data guide.
We will tell you
when a type is
not for you.
This one is reference rather than commercial, saying so in its opening line. We would rather explain why a type does not apply to your business than implement something that describes content you do not have.
On every page we build:
A recipe nobody has made cannot have a rating, however good the author knows it is.
Every guide.
One practice.
What structured data is, which types apply to your business, how to test it, where the results features come from and what to do when nothing appears.
