Recipe page visibility & SEO
Every published recipe gets a public page at a short /r/… link. This page explains
how search visibility works, how to change it, and how Cookping treats AI training.
What indexable pages get
When indexing is on (the default), each published recipe page carries:
- Recipe structured data — ingredients, steps, times, servings, and your byline in machine-readable form, which makes pages eligible for Google's recipe rich results (the cards with photo and cook time).
- A canonical URL and Open Graph tags — clean previews when shared anywhere.
- A place in the recipe sitemap — so search engines discover new recipes quickly.
Over time this makes your recipe library findable by people searching for the dish — an audience channel that compounds independently of the Instagram algorithm.
Turning search indexing off
Some creators prefer recipes to be reachable only by people who got the link — from a DM, a share, or their profile. In Settings → Recipe pages, switch off "Allow search engines to index my recipe pages." From then on your pages:
- send a noindex directive to compatible search crawlers such as Google and Bing (see noindex),
- are removed from the recipe sitemap,
- stop emitting Recipe structured data, so there's nothing structured to lift.
Pages stay public: anyone or any automated tool with the link can still request them. People can continue to open, read, save, and share them, and delivery is unaffected.
AI use and training
Search indexing and AI training are separate choices. Cookping does not grant permission to use creator-authored recipe pages to train or fine-tune AI models, regardless of the indexing setting. Indexing off does not make a recipe private, and not every crawler honours robots directives.
Timing
The switch applies to your recipe pages within a minute. The recipe PDF and the cover images are cached at the edge, so a copy fetched just before you flip the switch can keep serving the previous directive for up to ten more minutes — in both directions. Removal from search results isn't instant either — engines drop a page when they next recrawl it, typically days to a few weeks. Turning indexing back on restores everything on the page itself (structured data, sitemap, canonical) immediately, and pages reappear as they're recrawled.
Scope
The setting is per account and covers all your recipe pages at once. It doesn't affect
Cookping's own marketing or documentation pages — only /r/… pages you publish.
Frequently asked questions
Are Cookping recipe pages indexed by Google?
By default, yes. Published recipe pages carry schema.org/Recipe structured data, a canonical URL, and are listed in a recipe sitemap, making them eligible for Google's recipe rich results. Each creator can turn this off for their own pages in Settings.
How do I keep my recipes out of search results?
In Settings → Recipe pages, turn off “Allow search engines to index my recipe pages”. Your pages then send a noindex directive to compatible search crawlers, drop out of the recipe sitemap, and stop emitting Recipe structured data — while staying fully reachable for anyone with the link.
Do hidden pages stop working in DMs?
No. The visibility switch only affects crawlers. Recipe delivery, the DM buttons, sharing, and the pages themselves work exactly the same either way.