Images are the single most important visual element of a recipe. They drive clicks from Google search results, fuel Pinterest traffic, are required for Recipe rich results, and shape how readers experience your recipe before they read a single word.
This guide covers everything you need to know about images in the Recipe Card Blocks plugin: where they go, what specifications Google expects, how the plugin handles markup for you, how to optimize your images, and what to do when images don’t appear in search results.
There are three distinct image locations in a Recipe Card Blocks recipe, and confusion between them is one of the most common sources of support tickets.
This is the main image of the finished dish, displayed at the top of the recipe card block. It’s the image that gets included in the Recipe schema markup (schema.org/Recipe → image property) and the one Google looks at when deciding whether your page qualifies for Recipe rich results.
You set it directly inside the Recipe Card block when editing your recipe.
This image is the most important one to get right. If you only optimize one image on your recipe post, optimize this one.
These are optional images attached to individual recipe steps. They appear inline within the directions and are included in the schema as HowToStep.image properties. You can also attach a small gallery to a single step — the plugin outputs all of those images in the schema for that step.
While not required for Recipe rich results, step images significantly improve user experience and can help your recipe appear more thoroughly indexed by Google.
This is the standard WordPress post Featured Image, set in the post sidebar. It’s used by your theme for blog grids, archive pages, and social sharing previews — but it’s not the image used in your Recipe schema.
Many users assume the Featured Image is the recipe image. It isn’t — and there’s a subtle trap worth understanding:
If you set a Featured Image but don’t add an image inside the Recipe Card block, the recipe card will still display the Featured Image (it falls back to it visually). The page looks completely fine. But your Recipe schema will have no
imageat all, so you won’t be eligible for image-based rich results. The image is showing to your readers, yet missing from the data Google reads.
This is exactly why a recipe can “look right” and still fail the Rich Results Test. Always set the image inside the Recipe Card block, not just as the Featured Image.
Best practice: Use the same image in both places, or use a Pinterest-optimized vertical image as the Featured Image and a horizontal/square image inside the Recipe Card block.
You don’t need to manually create multiple image versions for Google. When you add an image inside the Recipe Card block, the plugin automatically:
image property as an array.
In other words, the “provide multiple aspect ratios” recommendation in Google’s documentation is handled for you, as long as an image is set inside the Recipe Card block. You don’t need to crop anything by hand.
Two things to know:
These are the requirements and recommendations from Google’s official Recipe structured data documentation.
image property of your Recipe schema. Without it, your recipe is not eligible for Recipe rich results.robots.txt, not behind a login wall, not marked noindex.One subtle point from Google’s documentation that’s worth knowing: the image property in Recipe markup affects rich result eligibility, but it doesn’t directly control which image Google chooses to show next to your text result in regular search snippets. Those are two separate systems.
Beyond Google’s bare minimum requirements, these are the practices that consistently produce strong-performing recipe images:
Shoot or source at high resolution. Aim for at least 1500–2000px on the longest edge. WordPress (and the plugin) will generate smaller versions automatically, but it can’t make a 600px image bigger. Higher-resolution sources also future-proof you against Google raising its thresholds.
Compress before uploading. Use a tool like TinyPNG, ShortPixel, or Imagify. Uncompressed images hurt Core Web Vitals, which is now a page experience signal.
Use descriptive filenames and alt text. Don’t upload IMG_3847.jpg. Rename to chocolate-chip-cookies-on-cooling-rack.jpg before uploading, and add meaningful alt text inside WordPress. This helps with both accessibility and image search.
Avoid heavy text overlays on your recipe image. Google’s image guidelines favor clean, content-representative photos. Pinterest-style images with large text overlays may underperform in Google rich results even if they perform well on Pinterest. This is why many bloggers maintain separate “Pinterest images” (text-heavy, vertical) and “blog images” (clean, horizontal or square) — and Recipe Card Blocks supports exactly that workflow (see below).
Set the image in the right place. Always add your hero image inside the Recipe Card block. As covered earlier, relying on the Featured Image alone leaves your schema without an image even though the card still displays one.
Be careful with lazy-loading. Aggressive lazy-loading can prevent Google from associating images with the recipe schema if the image fails to load during crawling. Most modern lazy-loading implementations handle this correctly, but if you’re using a custom solution, verify by inspecting the rendered HTML.
Photograph the finished dish. Process shots and ingredient flat-lays are great for storytelling, but the Recipe Card image should always be the finished, plated result.
Recipe Card Blocks includes native Pinterest support, which lets you serve the right image to the right platform without compromise:
This is the cleanest way to resolve the “vertical for Pinterest vs. horizontal for Google” tension: use the dedicated Pin image for Pinterest, and keep a clean, content-representative image inside the Recipe Card block for Google’s rich results.
If you want more control and choose a different image to be used for Pinterest, you can do that using the Social Share PRO plugin. View details about the Pinterest feature.
This is one of the most common questions food bloggers ask, and the honest answer is: in most cases, the cause is on Google’s side, not the plugin’s side.
What Recipe Card Blocks is responsible for: Generating valid schema.org/Recipe structured data with the image field populated and pointing to a crawlable image URL on your site. You can verify this is working by running your recipe URL through Google’s Rich Results Test. If the test shows “Page is eligible for Recipe rich results” with no errors, the plugin is doing its job correctly.
What Google decides: Whether to actually display the image thumbnail in the search results for any given query, on any given day, in any given format. This is an algorithmic decision Google makes per-query, and it’s outside any plugin’s control.
Google has publicly confirmed this. In a March 2024 discussion with food and travel bloggers reporting widespread thumbnail loss, John Mueller from Google’s Search team stated that thumbnails aren’t guaranteed for every result and that search results showing without images is sometimes the expected behavior. The same issue has been reported across multiple recipe plugins (including WP Recipe Maker), confirming this is an industry-wide pattern tied to Google’s display decisions, not any specific plugin.
That said, you can influence the odds. Things that increase the chance of Google showing your image:
If your images stopped showing around the time of a known Google algorithm update (especially Helpful Content or Core updates), that’s the most likely explanation. Recovery from these updates is a content quality issue, not a plugin issue.
You’ve almost certainly set a Featured Image but not an image inside the Recipe Card block. The recipe card falls back to displaying your Featured Image visually, so the page looks correct — but the schema only includes an image when one is set inside the block itself. Open the recipe in the editor, add your image inside the Recipe Card block, and re-test.
Run your recipe URL through Google’s Rich Results Test. It will show you the detected Recipe structured data, including the image property and the URL(s) of the image. If the image field is empty or shows an error, you have a real problem to fix. If it’s populated and validates as eligible, the plugin is doing its job.
No. Recipe Card Blocks automatically generates those three aspect ratios (plus your full-size original) and includes them in the schema for you. Just upload one high-resolution image inside the Recipe Card block. (If you added the plugin after uploading older images, regenerate your thumbnails so the cropped ratios exist for those posts.)
This is normal. Google chooses whether to show thumbnails on a per-query basis. The same recipe page might show an image thumbnail for one search query and not another, even on the same day. This is by design and consistent with how Google describes its search results pages.
The Featured Image is a WordPress core feature, set in the post editor sidebar. It’s used by your theme (for blog grids, archive pages, related posts) and for social media sharing previews (Open Graph / Twitter Card).
The Recipe Card image is set inside the Recipe Card block itself and is the one included in your Recipe schema markup that Google uses for rich results.
They serve different purposes and are not automatically synchronized. Importantly, the recipe card will visually fall back to your Featured Image if no Recipe Card image is set — but the schema will not. So always set the image inside the block, not just as the Featured Image. You can use the same image in both, or use different images optimized for different contexts.
For photos of finished dishes, JPG is the standard choice — smaller file size at high visual quality. Use PNG only when you need transparency or for graphics with sharp edges. WebP offers better compression than JPG and is supported by Google, but ensure your hosting and CDN deliver fallbacks for older browsers (most modern WordPress hosting handles this automatically).
Yes. Large unoptimized images are one of the most common causes of poor Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) scores, which is a Core Web Vitals metric and a confirmed Google ranking signal. Always compress images before uploading, and consider serving them through a CDN (such as Cloudflare or Bunny.net) for faster delivery.
Yes — and Recipe Card Blocks makes this easy. Vertical (2:3 or 1000×1500) images perform best on Pinterest but aren’t Google’s preferred shape for Recipe rich results. Rather than compromise, use the plugin’s dedicated Pin image for a tall Pinterest graphic, and keep a clean horizontal or square image inside the Recipe Card block for Google. Many food bloggers also set the vertical Pinterest image as the WordPress Featured Image for social sharing. Either way, the image inside the Recipe Card block is the one that feeds Google’s rich results.
Yes. Alt text serves two purposes: accessibility (screen readers describe the image to visually impaired users) and image SEO (it helps Google understand what the image depicts, which can improve ranking in Google Images). Write descriptive, natural alt text — for example, “Stack of chocolate chip cookies on a wooden board” rather than “cookies” or “chocolate-chip-cookies-recipe”.
The Recipe Card Blocks plugin handles the technical side of recipe image markup automatically — including outputting your image in all three of Google’s recommended aspect ratios. Your job as a food blogger is to provide a high-quality, high-resolution source image and to set it in the right place: inside the Recipe Card block, not just as the Featured Image.
When images don’t show in Google search results despite all of this being done correctly, remember: a valid Recipe schema makes you eligible for rich results with images. Whether Google actually displays the image for any given search is a separate decision Google makes per query, and it’s something neither the plugin nor any other SEO tool can directly control.
For related troubleshooting on Google Search Console messages about recipe schema, see our Common Google Search Console Issues & Solutions guide.
Current version: 7.1.7
