NEW! Google Custom Search

Loading
Home › Forums › Feedback and Help › Feedback on Fine Cooking

FC Online

merlincat's picture

FC Online (post #68096)

merlincat on Tue, 12/08/2009 - 10:29
in

Maybe this has been talked about - I've roughly searched but haven't seen anything.

I pay for FC online, but haven't used it much over the past year. Now, around holiday time, I'm back to it - and what the heck has happened to it over the past year? It's impossible to find things now! The search function is astoundingly terrible. For example - Caramel Turtle Bars, FC#82. Try searching Turtle - the recipe doesn't come up. The article associated with the recipe, Raising the Bar Cookie, comes up in the search results - but the recipes referenced in the article are no longer linked after the article!! What is going on with that? What good is an article that talks about recipes if the links to the recipes aren't included?

This is just one example of something I've now encountered multiple times - as another example, search "candied orange peel" and the recipe for Chocolate Orange Biscotti, FC #54, doesn't show up, even though this is an ingredient. Cookie recipes from 1998 FCs simply aren't online, or aren't findable. I thought it was just a fluke the first time, but now that it's happened repeatedly, I am forced to believe that something is fundamentally wrong. I used to be able to find recipes when I searched for them using words or ingredients. I used to pull up an article and see next to it a list of all the recipes discussed in the article. I'm not sure when this changed, but whatever the aesthetic virtues of this new format, it isn't working the way it's supposed to. Certainly on a paid site, I expect better than this.

Am I missing something? Is this a known problem that the editors are working on? How can they have allowed the site to go live with these issues? Who can I tell, if they don't already know?

‹ fudge Look What MadMom Did! ›
-A +A
TracyK's picture

I'm not sure why you're (post #68096, reply #1 of 2)

by TracyK in reply to merlincat [original] on Tue, 12/08/2009 - 10:37

I'm not sure why you're having that problem... if I go to the FC home page and use the "powered by Google" search in the upper right-hand corner, these are the first two results that come up (both of which take me to a page that links to the recipe):

Refine results for turtle: Ingredients Recipes

Custom Search
Holiday Cookies - Fine CookingChocolate Cherry Coconut Macaroons. Bar Cookies. Caramel Turtle Bars · Peanut Butter & Chocolate Shortbread Bars · Lemon Shortbread Bars ...
www.finecooking.com/collections/holiday-cookies.aspx

Raising the Bar Cookie - Fine Cooking ArticlePeanut Butter & Chocolate Shortb... Lemon Shortbread Bars · Cranberry Streusel Shortbread Bars Cranberry Streusel Shortbread Ba... Caramel Turtle Bars ...
www.finecooking.com/articles/raising-the-bar-cookie.aspx

Edited to add: The recipes are not listed under the article, they are in a window to the right of the article, near the top. Slide the horizontal scroll bar to see all the recipes.

merlincat's picture

But you're proving my point (post #68096, reply #2 of 2)

by merlincat in reply to TracyK [original] on Thu, 12/10/2009 - 20:21

But you're proving my point here - while the "holiday cookie collection" and the "raising the bar cookie" articles show up in the search results, the actual "Fine Cooking Recipe" for the caramel turtle bars does not. A search result that includes a holiday cookie collection that lists those cookies and an article about those cookies, but not the individual cookie recipe itself, is not a correct or complete search result. When I search for "peanut butter bars," "Peanut Butter & Chocolate Shortbread Bars - Fine Cooking Recipe" shows up in the search results, in addition to the link to the Raising the Bar Cookie article; similarly, "Caramel Turtle Bars - Fine Cooking Recipe" should show up in the search results for turtle, and the fact that it doesn't suggests that something is wrong with the search function and/or the site indexing.

And what about the Candied Orange Peel problem? The turtle bars are only one example of the problems I'm having searching for recipes. The search function on the site simply is not giving the results it should. This is very frustrating when I am in fact paying for full and easy access to all FC recipes, and I think it needs to be addressed.

I do now see where the recipes accompanying the article are listed in the window near the top - thanks for that. The horizontal scroll bar is almost impossible to see, so I didn't realize it was there.