Google has added a new feature to help its users search for recipes online. Whereas a generalized search will return a mix of recipes and unrelated articles to sift through,  Google Recipe Search allows recipe hunters to refine their results to just recipes. Users can then narrow down results based on ingredients, cook time, and/or the number of calories in a dish.  Results include user ratings, ingredient lists, and thumbnail images to further aid in selection.

To see how helpful this new feature can be, I tried it myself with a search for apple cobbler. Within seconds, I found a recipe that had two of my specialized ingredients in it (oats and brandy, if you’re wondering).  Being fond of trying new recipes, I know how time consuming it can be to search the Internet for them. There are many cooking sites. A standard search will lead you to recipes on several of these sites, each one of which has to be searched in turn for the right version of the dish in question. Google’s new feature takes the guesswork out of the equation.

Say you’re a busy mom or dad who has to make dinner in a hurry. You can custom search for recipes that take less than 15, 30, or 60 minutes to complete. On a diet? Just select the settings for dishes containing fewer than 100, 300, or 500 calories. You can even type in holidays such as Easter or Mother’s Day to find appropriate recipes. In terms of saving time and effort, this new tool is a wonderful addition to Google’s search capacities.

Nevertheless, one criticism of this feature is that you have to pick from a limited list of ingredients when wanting to use them to narrow your search. Sometimes, the specific ingredient you use may not be listed. Perhaps in the future, Google could remedy this by offering a textbox allowing you to enter your own ingredients.

Another drawback is that the results are currently from a limited number of sources. Several test searches revealed just three or four cooking sites consistently getting the lion’s share: AllRecipes.com, Food.com, and FoodNetwork.com. Though there is nothing wrong with these sites, there are many other good ones as well, and users might be missing out on them. This might mean that if the recipe you want is not on a main site, you may have trouble finding it using this tool. For example, one recipe I searched for could not be found. It was so specific that only a generalized search could find it. Sounds ironic, doesn’t it?[smartads]

The magic behind Google Recipe Search, rich snippet markup, is also the culprit causing the problem. Without getting too technical, the new search feature uses little chunks of computer language called rich snippet markup to distinguish between what is a recipe and what is not. These bits of code do not show up when you are reading the page. They are hidden in the website, much like the <em> html code that makes a word italicized, or the <strong> html code that makes a word bold. You do not have to read them; the computer does it for you. In the same way, Google’s search engine knows the difference between a recipe for an apple cobbler and the technical specifications for an Apple iPod because the website with the apple cobbler has little bits of code that specifically tell the search engine it is a recipe.

From the point of view of a food writer, I believe this additional markup could cause up-and-coming writers to see fewer hits to their sites. Google does provide the tools for recipe publishers to add rich snippet markup to their webpages so that they show up in Google Recipe view. However, many writers are not fluent with basic html code, let alone this new code that Google has created. This creates a tough learning curve for smaller sites without technical staff comparable to the above mentioned websites. As Google’s new feature becomes more commonly used, I hope that coding your recipe with rich snippets will one day become as easy as clicking the “B” icon to make your font bold.

Overall, this is a great new feature for cooks and foodies everywhere. I would recommend getting the best of Google by using both the generalized and refined searches, depending on need. To use the new feature, just click “Recipes” on the left side of Google’s result page.

Here is a video from Google Chef Scott Giambastiani explaining Google Recipe Search:

– Ray Hollister contributed to this article.