The explanation I've heard it's that it's an SEO thing -- if your page isn't "unique" it gets nuked in the rankings, so recipe sites need to add a long preamble

The explanation I've heard it's that it's an SEO thing -- if your page isn't "unique" it gets nuked in the rankings, so recipe sites need to add a long preamble to distinguish their otherwise-identical recipe. Another explanation is that longer articles mean more time spent on the site, i.e. it pumps up those "user engagement" metrics. Plus more space for ads. The saving grace is that most recipe sites have a "Jump to recipe" button. They know people don't want to read their life story, but they can't jeopardize their SEO. EDIT: more well-informed speculation here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/3gkzog/comment/ctz5d9r https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/3gkzog/comment/ctz...