As of 2020, we've moved away from a dedicated "recipe index" page. The homepage is the new recipe index.
This is because:
- The recipe index is thin content, because it contains no unique content, making it a low value page to search engines
- The homepage has turned into the recipe index, listing high priority categories and important posts directly
- Note: the old theme homepage displayed posts by date, but users don't care about what date a recipe was posted, see: the Modern Homepage
- Posts and categories should be linked to from the homepage, which is the highest-authority page on the website
- Widgitized pages are limited, and the "Featured Posts" widgets contain outdated markup/schema
- The block editor provides greater flexibility in displaying the site owner (author) bio, improving E-A-T, as well as the ability to list other services such as:
- recipe development
- food photography
- personal chef services
- weekly meal prep
- category
- nutrition counselling
- Drop-down menus are terrible on mobile, and javascript-based page refreshes prevent the all-important internal linking
Removing the dedicated recipe index page is:
- good for bloggers, because it's one less page to manage
- good for readers, who get higher quality content on the homepage and save an unnecessary click to a duplicate page
- good for search engines, because it sends clear signals of what is important