Okay, I’m going to say it and I’m going to keep saying it. What’s up with the recipe websites ruling the net for vegetarian and vegan searches? How come 90% of the first three pages on all the major search engines for vegetarian and vegan related keywords are for damn recipes?
Don’t believe me? Here are some search examples for the keyword “vegetarian” on major search engines… Google, Yahoo, HotBot,… and the list goes on.
I’m kind of appalled by this fact. I know many can argue and say thing like not all vegetarians and vegans are in it for animal rights. I know many will say there’s a lot of Hindus that are vegetarians. My answer is, “I don’t care who, why, and for what reason.” Bottom line, animal rights and welfare websites should be the ones on getting the better placement for these keywords. If Google, Yahoo, and any other major search engine is placing recipe websites ahead for these keywords then:
A) Recipe websites are simply more popular for these searches (very pathetic, but at this point of time true)
B) Animal Rights and Welfare websites, issues, movements, organizations, etc, etc,.. Aren’t doing their jobs on the internet to get a higher placement.
C) It’s a right-winged conspiracy.
The answer isn’t “C” because the right-winged conspiracy isn’t smart enough to figure out Google’s algorithm. So using a bit of deductive logic here that leaves us with A and B. Sad reality is they are both correct.
Don’t take me wrong for one second, I think vegetarian and vegan recipes are great. I’m glad there are so many websites that have such a rich source of info as far as recipes go. It’s just when recipes seem to be more important than convictions (proven by keyword popularity,) then I think a lot of people who are for animal rights and welfare have a lot of work ahead.
Personally, I just think this has to change. Anyone want to help? I know I’m trying!!!
EOM
PeTAKid
EcoUnite.com
fritz said,
May 3, 2006 @ 12:30 pm
You forgot (d) Vegetarianism is not necessarily got to do with animal rights, and
(e) to make vegetarianism appealing, you need good recipes
Riva said,
May 14, 2006 @ 3:23 pm
but i’m sure that a search for “animal rights” would bring up the activism websites.
i agree with fritz. as a vegetarian, on a practical level i also need to find healthy ways to implement vegetarianism into my life (finding out what i need to eat…a balanced vegetarian diet isn’t going to be just a meat-eater’s diet without the meat). and i think that the most effective way to get other people to be vegetarians is proving to them that it isn’t difficult as well as proving to them that it’s more ethical. i think even peta.org at some point recommended throwing a party at which all the food was vegan, the point being to show other people that vegans and vegetarians can still stuff that tastes good, making them more likely to adopt it themselves.
i don’t know about yahoo, which has struck me as corrupt since i learned that they handed over the personal e-mails of a pro-democracy guy in china to the government, and i think there was another issue recently with bmw paying to get higher placings in yahoo search results, but the google pagerank system doesn’t work that way. it’s based on determining the importance of a page from the number of links coming into a page. i guess that means that if you really want to improve, say, peta.org’s pagerank, you have to link to it a lot from your blog, and have a lot of people who link to you.
Riva said,
May 14, 2006 @ 3:31 pm
adding to what i said earlier, a search for “animal rights” or “factory farming” would probably turn up the kinds of things that you want people to see. so, the issue is how to get people to search more often for these terms. one notices from looking at, for instance, the daily top searches on technorati.com that they usually reflect current events/recent news, things that got big coverage from the meainstream media and that people are turning to look up in the blogosphere. animal conditions, like the environment, just don’t get nearly enough publicity on a day-to-day basis to put them into people’s consciousness.
species are going extinct and the environment is being destroyed every day and military politics is what they’re talking about.
Mike said,
May 15, 2006 @ 2:16 pm
fritz:
Vegetarianism is primarily to do with animal rights – even when it’s tied up in religion, eg. Buddhism. And he did mention it – just not in that list.
To make Vegetarianism appealing, you need to know the reasons behind the choice. If that choice is based on moral issues, the quality of your carrot-cake recipe won’t be an issue. If poor recipes are enough to turn a person away from vegetarianism then they’re either very shallow or very stupid (dependent on their initial reasoning for going veggie).
Me [sic] said,
June 10, 2006 @ 7:36 pm
One point you’re unfortunately missing is that recipe websites are likely to be frequented again and again while animal rights websites are not. This is not due to vegitarians not caring for animals. Rather, it is because the information on animal rights websites are usually static, meaning they probably won’t change. After you read one, you probably won’t go back. But that’s not true for recipe websites, for I might visit one even ten times a day, if not more. Thus, the recipe websites get a higher visitor count than those of mere animal rights.
The Bach said,
October 19, 2006 @ 5:26 am
Vegetarians
There is some classification I made about food habits, keeping vegetarians in mind, with some information available over net. Here they are.
Fruitarians. – These people eat fruits, seeds and raw roots (sweet potatoes etc). The Hindu (inc…
George H said,
November 6, 2006 @ 10:39 pm
Hey Peta,
Poker.com is a good site. Could u check out betzip and truepoker and tell me what u think thanks.
George
petakid said,
January 16, 2007 @ 7:54 am
Hey George, betzip isn’t all that and I never played at Truepoker.
Mike said,
January 16, 2007 @ 10:02 am
Hate to say it, but you’re sounding a little bit up yourself here. A quick look up of ‘Vegetarian’ in the dictionary says:
1. a person who does not eat or does not believe in eating meat, fish, fowl, or, in some cases, any food derived from animals, as eggs or cheese, but subsists on vegetables, fruits, nuts, grain, etc.
–adjective
2. of or pertaining to vegetarianism or vegetarians.
3. devoted to or advocating this practice.
4. consisting solely of vegetables: vegetarian vegetable soup.
- so it’s really not surprising you get recipes when googling ‘vegetarianism’. Try ‘animal rights’ if you’re looking for animal rights issues. They’re connected (sometimes), but they’re not the same thing.
BTW I’m been strict veggie for 20 years, so I’m not trolling…
petakid said,
January 16, 2007 @ 10:17 am
Mike, my point here is simply that many veggies out there like to take out the true animal rights factor out of being a vegetarian/vegan. I just find it rather ridiculous that you have all these “veg” sites out there and yet very few of them even reference the animal rights factor. I understand that there are vegetarians out there that are simply in it for health reasons and can care less about animals. However, one would think that many vegetarian websites would at least offer more reference to the suffering of animals to give even more validity to being a ‘veg.’ rather than not mentioning it at all. There’s just so much info that could be shared out there on this subject, yet it sure doesn’t seem like it’s being referenced as it should.