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| GOOGLE AMP |
What is AMP technology and how does it work?
Accelerated Mobile Pages, commonly known as AMP for short, has been the source of much speculation and discussion since its inception. Although it claims faster user experience and better search engine rankings, it comes with radical mobile optimization.
Even with a large number of users from the start, many development teams remain skeptical about whether or not it can deliver on its promise.
Although Google AMP has never been considered a direct ranking factor by Google, the search engine is still known in many cases to provide a distinct advantage over non-AMP sites. However, with our only ongoing change - we think about the future of AMP.
- Let's take a look at why AMP was important in the past, its function in the ever-changing world of SEO, and finally, whether or not it's here to stay.
What is AMP?
The AMP project, originally created by Google as a competitor to Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles, is an open-source HTML framework developed by the AMP Open Source Project. AMP is optimized for mobile web browsing and aims to help web pages load faster on all mobile devices.
How does the AMP project work?
When you use AMP on your site, mobile pages load instantly. Much of this speed comes from implementing web design best practices, but a necessary edge is gained through clever rendering tricks that start your page loading before you visit it.
The two main factors in AMP:
Web design limitations: AMP imposes strict web design restrictions that only allow inline styles, limits CSS to 50KB, restricts JavaScript to 150KB, and completely removes all edges from the critical rendering path. As it is, these limitations are enough to create very fast web pages - but they're not the secret ingredient that makes them instant.
Prerendering: When mobile search results include AMP pages, Google starts loading resources for those pages even before they visit. By the time the user searches the search results and selects a page to visit, it will already be loaded and will appear immediately. If the page is in a non-AMP format, it will only start loading when you visit it.
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| GOOGLE SEO |
Does Google AMP affect SEO ranking?
While AMP by itself is not a ranking factor, it does come with significant improvements in page speed and user experience, which is currently important for ranking in SERPs.
Initially, AMP pages were shown in the top stories section of Google searches. However, this has not been the case for some time. As part of a recent update to "Core Web Vitals," Google has confirmed that AMP is no longer a requirement for web pages to appear in the top stories section of Google Search.
Top positions in Google search can now include both AMP webpages and non-AMP webpages, as long as the basic web fundamentals page experience standards are followed. With this key advantage of AMP now lost, many web developers now believe that the advantages of AMP technology outweigh the negatives.
An important point to remember is that the rules differ for those who run news sites specifically. Google has many dedicated storyboards that completely dominate search queries surrounding anything related to the news. As you can see on the screen below, you won't have a chance to get into these storyboards without an AMP page.
Pros and Cons of AMP Project:
AMP Pros :
- Increase web page speed: Page speed increases the interaction of web page visitors with content, and visitors are more likely to make purchases on fast and hassle-free pages. Faster load times also mean that visitors are less likely to get impatient - causing them to turn away from your content or abandon their carts. As mentioned above, page speed is also a huge ranking factor for Google.
- Helps improve website server performance: Using AMP helps a website generate mobile traffic which reduces the load on the servers and helps improve the website's overall performance.
AMP Cons :
- Increase website performance through cache: As we know AMP is very useful in increasing website loading speed. However, it is highly cache-dependent, which in turn is a disadvantage of using AMP.
- AMP Negatively Affects Website Analytics: Although AMP supports Google Analytics, it requires different tags to be implemented on all AMP pages - this in turn limits the website's analytics usage.
- Website advertising revenue is reduced: The use of Accelerated Mobile Pages limits the website's ability to generate revenue through ads. This is one of the biggest downsides of using AMP as an app to build a mobile-friendly website.
Should you use AMP on your site?
Simply put, AMP just depends on whether you have a news site or not. If you do, you should have started using AMP 4 years ago. If you are not a news site and your goal is not to appear on these main news boards, we see no reason to convert to AMP in the future.
Similar speeds for web pages can be achieved with regular mobile optimization - so, if your website is already fast, don't waste your time implementing AMP as it won't have any additional benefit.
Our final conclusion
Having listed the pros and cons above, it is highly recommended not to use AMP if you already have a fast, mobile-friendly, non-news website. The AMP project offers an impressive speed advantage without sacrificing usability. However, he's also about to extend those benefits to fast, non-AMP pages. So, AMP is about to become just another mobile optimization option.