Cook's Illustrated Exclusive Search

By default, Cook's Illustrated includes search results from all its network sites, even if you do not have a membership to those other sites. These search results are advertisements because the content is locked behind a paywall.

After performing a search it is possible to deselect the other sites manually, then the search results will not include any advertisements for network sites. However, browsing to a recipe and performing a new search will reset the selected sites requiring them to be deselected manually, every single time a search is performed.

As an example, the search query bacon has 40 results on the first page. Of these 40, only 15 results are for Cook's Illustrated Online. That means that 37% of results are valid and 63% of results are advertisements.

The problem illustrated

When searching for bacon:

Solution

This extension looks for the atkGlobalSearch form and modifies the action parameter. By default, the form looks like this:

  <form action="/search" class="atkGlobalSearch" method="GET" data-marketing-key="atk-global-search">
    <input aria-label="Search recipes, reviews &amp; more" data-marketing-key="atk-global-search-term" name="q" type="search" class="atkGlobalSearch__input" placeholder="Search recipes, reviews &amp; more">
    <button aria-label="Search recipes, reviews &amp; more" class="atkGlobalSearch__submit"><svg><use xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="#icons-search" class="atkGlobaSiteHeader__email--submit"></use></svg></button>
  </form>

When the form is submitted with a search term bacon, the URL looks like this:

https://www.cooksillustrated.com/search?q=bacon&dFR[search_site_list][0]=cio&dFR[search_site_list][1]=cco&dFR[search_site_list][2]=atk&dFR[search_site_list][3]=cookbook_collection&dFR[search_site_list][4]=school

If we break down the querystring parameters we find the following structure:

  {
    "q": "bacon",
    "dFR[search_site_list][0]": "cio",
    "dFR[search_site_list][1]": "cco",
    "dFR[search_site_list][2]": "atk",
    "dFR[search_site_list][3]": "cookbook_collection",
    "dFR[search_site_list][4]": "school"
  }

Accordingly, the search results page will include results from:

cio, aka "Cook's Illustrated Online"
cco, aka "Cook's Country Online"
atk, aka "America's Test Kitchen"
cookbook_collection, aka "Cookbook Collection"
school, aka "Cooking School"

If you have not paid for subscriptions to all of these sites then the search results will be polluted with advertisements for these network sites.

This extension modifies the atkGlobalSearch <form> element to use the following action:

/search?dFR[search_site_list][0]=cio&fR[search_cookbook_collection][0]=false

As a result, search queries will be formed like the following:

/search?dFR[search_site_list][0]=cio&fR[search_cookbook_collection][0]=false&q=bacon

The search result page will then display results only from Cook's Illustrated Online.

anothermh/cies

Cook's Illustrated Exclusive Search

The problem illustrated

Solution