Online Recipes Have their Peak Moment for the Year

It’s a good week to buy recipe sites, says Hitwise. Visits to properties in the measurement company’s food & beverage category are expected to double this week, peaking certainly in the next 24 to 48 hours. A bit late to do much about it, of course, unless your nearest friendly ad network can hook you up. AllRecipes.com appears to be the best optimized of sites in the category, winning more than 35 percent of search traffic on the term “recipe.” FoodNetwork.com, meanwhile, wins out in terms of brand strength and popularity, according to both Hitwise and comScore.

If you’re interested in media strategies around food-focused sites, ClickZ recently covered a thoroughly integrated, cross-platform sponsorship cookware manufacturer Calphalon did with FoodNetwork.com. It’s waaay too late to get started on something like this for the 2006 yule season, of course. Again, just something to keep in mind for coming food-centric holidays.