The archive · Consumer Apps · Product decision · 2022
OnlyRecipe.app bets cooks will extract recipes past SEO walls; HN 560 pts
A consumer app and web service that turns a recipe page URL into just the ingredients and steps, using schema.org markup recipe blogs already embed for Google.
OnlyRecipe.app
What the business is
A consumer web and mobile service that takes a recipe page URL and returns just the recipe information, removing the clutter recipe blogs pile around it.
How it started
Developer AwkwardPanda launched OnlyRecipe app-first: iOS and Android apps came before the web version, and a QR-code feature moved a recipe found on a computer to a phone. The pitch stated the premise directly: skimming text walls to reach the actual recipe is frustrating, authors write those walls to rank on Google, and almost all recipe blogs follow a recipe markup standard when they post, so the tool could extract from almost all of them.
What happened
The 2022-01-04 Show HN thread grew to 560 points and 345 comments. Users tested live recipes from Love and Lemons, Simply Recipes, Allrecipes, and Food Network, reporting successes and failures the author answered with promises of per-site fixes. Commenters also pushed on scraping ethics: the author confirmed real-time server-side fetching with random user agents and no opt-out list at the time, and the thread invoked the Recipeasly controversy and named rivals including Paprika, Mela, Saffron, Recipe Filter, and Copy Me That.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
OnlyRecipe.app is a bet that the clutter around online recipes is a choice, not a fact of life, and that cooks will route around it. The service takes a recipe page URL and returns just the recipe information, instead of the life-story essays and ad-stuffed layouts that food bloggers write to rank on Google. The pitch explained the mechanism: almost all recipe blogs follow a recipe markup standard when they post, so the tool could extract from almost all of them.
Developer AwkwardPanda built it app-first: iOS and Android apps came before the web version, and a QR-code feature moved a recipe from a desktop browser to a phone in the kitchen. The 2022-01-04 Hacker News launch argued that skimming text walls to find the actual recipe is frustrating, and that authors write those walls to get high rankings on Google. Users in the thread confirmed the pain with live tests of recipes from Love and Lemons, Simply Recipes, Allrecipes, and Food Network; some worked, some failed, and the author promised per-site fixes.
The thread grew to 560 points and 345 comments, and much of it was a fight over whether the idea should exist. Commenters pressed the author on scraping: he confirmed real-time server-side fetching with random user agents and no opt-out list at the time. Others invoked the Recipeasly controversy, a recipe-stripping site that shut down after food bloggers attacked it, and named incumbents such as Paprika, Mela, Saffron, Recipe Filter, and Copy Me That, which shows how many teams were chasing the same pain.
What has to be true
- The pain is structural and universal: recipe blogs pad pages with story text because Google rankings reward it, so readers of almost every food blog meet the same wall.
- The extraction hook already existed: sites embed schema.org Recipe JSON so Google shows rich results, so a scraper that reads that markup works on almost all compliant recipe sites.
- App-first with a phone in the kitchen fit the usage moment, and the QR-code path moved a recipe found on a desktop straight to the phone.
- The 560-point, 345-comment Show HN validated demand in a day, while the ethics fight over scraping marked the risk.
What can be applied
A shared structural annoyance is a launch wedge: SEO walls made demand obvious, and the schema markup blogs already publish for Google handed a small scraper a universal parsing hook.
Aftermath
As of 2022-01-04, the launch-day thread shows OnlyRecipe live as an app-first service with iOS and Android apps, a later-built web version, and the author fixing per-site extraction bugs during the conversation. No funding, revenue, or team details were disclosed, and this material contains no later record of the product.
Sources
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