If you want to see the impact of Google on the shape of the web, look no further than recipe blogs — sites that provide a fairly straightforward service but that must besearch engine optimized to extreme lengths to get Google’s attention and, by extension, traffic. The wall of text filled with personal histories or diary-like ramblings are not shoved in front of readers because bloggers want to do it; that text is there so Google’s algorithms understand the content on the page and (hopefully) rank it higher in search.
Though the option to view recipes in search is still in an early trial period, it’s in line with how search is changing: Google wants users to stay on its services and platforms whenever possible. AI Overviews, which pull details from webpages and synthesize responses using artificial intelligence, are designed tomake it unnecessary for searchers to scroll down through results and visit actual webpages, even when AI answers are bizarre or straight-up inaccurate. The new recipe feature could have the same effect: what’s the point in clicking through to a site, or even comparing two different recipes, when Google has its own built-in answer?