Fix Recipes Markup – email by Google Search Console

Did you get a message that looks like this? Google search console not only restyled their dashboard, but also have started preemptively sending ‘helpful’ reminders.

The problem is that they can appear alarming!

If you do not have a Rich Markup / Snippet Creator Type of plugin for recipes, you need one for WordPress. This email is talking about errors created by that plugin.

This particular email – “Fix Recipe Markup” is about the markup for recipes. If you click the “Open the Recipes report” button you’ll be taken to a screen like this:

I understand how this looks bad! Look at the “Valid” recipes? ZERO?!? However, please listen closely – NO ONE is likely to have any recipes in the ‘valid’ tab.

Here is what needs to be included in your recipe for it to be “valid”:

To be honest, it is highly unlikely anyone will have all of these in all of their recipes. If you complete all these fields, your recipes will be valid, and you will not get an email with purported ‘issues’.

NOTE: for advanced users, you may want to add recipeIngredients and recipeInstructions to every recipe so they are eligible for Google Guidance. (Think: Alexa or Google Home & Google Assistant (and I’m assuming Siri)).

Error in Recipe Markup

If you have actual errors in your recipe markup, you will want to fix those. If you have ‘warnings’ they are optional to fix. And it’s unlikely you will be able to add all the fields they are asking for (see above).

To fix the errors, look in the first tab, and scroll down to the Issues section. 

Click on a row with the “Error” status. It will open a screen with a list of examples of that error.

Copy and paste that url into your browser, fix the missing field from that recipe – usually an image or name.

Then scroll to the top of the page and click “Validate Fix”.

Once the errors are fixed, you can safely ignore the “Fix Recipe Markup Issues” email.

Questions? Let me know in the comments! This is part of our SEO for WordPress guide.