Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) | Why Do They Matter?

AMP has been around for a while already and many companies have optimized their web pages for AMP. However, most recently both Google and Facebook announced changes to their algorithms.

And which ultimately is going to penalize websites that are not Accelerated Mobile Pages supported. The simple reason why is that they both want to offer customers a better experience when they click on a web page.

How does Accelerated Mobile Pages work?  

In general, your web pages need to load faster and be optimized for mobile viewing. And this is exactly where Accelerated Mobile Pages come into play.

Essentially a framework for creating mobile web pages, AMP consists of three basic parts. Including,

1. AMP HTML

A subset of HTML, this markup language has some custom tags and properties and many restrictions. But if you are familiar with regular HTML, you should not have difficulty adapting existing pages to AMP HTML.

For more details on how it differs from basic HTML, check out AMP Project’s list of required markup that your AMP HTML page “must” have.

2. AMP JS

A JavaScript framework for mobile pages. For the most part, it manages resource handling and asynchronous loading. It should be noted that third-party JavaScript is not permitted with AMP.

3. AMP CDN

An optional Content Delivery Network, it will take your AMP-enabled pages, cache them and automatically make some performance optimizations.

How Do You Use The AMP Plugin In WordPress?

The AMP Project is an open-source initiative aiming to make the web better for all. Accelerated Mobile Pages enables web experiences that are consistently fast, beautiful and high-performing across distribution platforms.

Further, the Official Accelerated Mobile Pages Plugin for WordPress supports fully integrated AMP publishing for WordPress sites, with robust capabilities and granular publisher controls.

Additionally, the features and capabilities provided by the plugin include:

(a) Compatibility Tool

The compatibility tool assists in the development of AMP experience. For instance, by enabling AMP debugging. In particular, with detailed information about validation errors that may exist.

In addition to the website markup/scripts causing them. And the specific components on-site (e.g theme, plugin, core) responsible for that page content.

(b) CSS Tree Shaking

Assists in dealing with cases where the defined CSS rules on a site exceed the CSS size limit allowed on single Accelerated Mobile Pages.

(c) Core Theme Support

Further enabling full AMP validity for four default themes (i.e. Twenty Fifteen, Twenty Sixteen, Twenty Seventeen, Twenty Nineteen).

(d) Gutenberg Support

Generally enabling Accelerated Mobile Pages content creation fully integrated with Gutenberg.

(e) AMP-first Experiences support

Enabling full-site AMP experiences without sacrificing the flexibility of the platform, or the fidelity of content.

(f) Content Optimizations Structure

A myriad of code, performance, and developer experience improvements: from customization flexibility to better UI flows, internationalization, accessibility, etc.

With the official AMP plugin for WordPress, the WordPress ecosystem is provided with the capabilities and tools it needs to build world-class AMP experiences without deviating from its standard, flexible, and well-known content creation workflow.

What are you waiting for? Here is how you Get Started!

How do you Utilize AMP on your Website?

Firstly, you’ll need to create two versions of your article pages because AMP does not support form elements and third-party JavaScript.

Therefore, you will not be able to lead forms, on-page comments, and some other elements. In addition, you will also need to rewrite your site template to include:

• Your CSS in Accelerated Mobile Pages must be in-line and be less than 50KB.
• images need to utilize the custom amp-img element and must include an explicit width and height.
• There is a custom tag that must be used to embed locally hosted videos via HTML5, called amp-video

In order for Google (and other technologies supporting the AMP Project) to detect the AMP version of your web pages you will need to include the tag: (<link rel=”amphtml” href=”http://www.example.com/blog-post/amp/”>)

Whilst also including the Schema.org metadata “is a requirement to make your content eligible to appear in the demo of the Google Search news carousel”.

And if you’re using WordPress there is an official plug-in amp-wp GitHub page. Equally, Accelerated Mobile Pages improves the speed of your website loading time and will help your search engine ranking.

What is Google AMP Stories?

Through Google AMP stories, the feature allows publishers to create content that is very similar to Instagram stories. Not forgetting, designed with mobile websites in mind. But, the content created with AMP doesn’t end up on apps. Instead, it’s placed in search results pages.

What you should know about Google AMP stories – jmexclusivesAMP is an open-source project that was created in response to the fact that mobile users now spend more time on apps than on websites. 77% of their time, to be exact, according to Statista data.

With AMP Stories, content loads extremely fast, which helps keep mobile users on those pages and off of their apps. Instead of regular search engine results, users receive a swipeable story that’s easy to navigate. The UX is somewhat similar to the popular dating app, Tinder.

Read more about What are the AMP Stories?

Pros & Cons of Accelerated Mobile Pages

While the idea of having a faster mobile internet with content that loads instantly sounds like a great idea, there is a lot of concern among web developers when it comes to AMP.

And these concerns should have publishers equally worried. Such as;

1. Disappearing links (and ad revenue)

One of the problems with the AMP concept is that content built utilizing Accelerated Mobile Pages is served up through a cache on Google’s server. Rather than actually linking to the original page on a publisher’s website.

Whereas, this means that the reader is spending more time on Google’s site and will be seeing Google advertising. As opposed to any paid advertising on the content provider’s site. More money for Google, less money for the actual content creator.

2. Less analytics and more work

Although AMP works with Google Analytics, you have to use a different tag, which can be quite time-consuming. If you don’t include the new tag, you miss out on a ton of analytics information.

Plus, AMP is not particularly easy when it comes to installation. You basically have to do all the coding manually. Basically, this puts you before a dilemma.

Either design your site the way you want it and the way it will convert and set it up for Accelerated Mobile Pages later,  or disregard conversion and aesthetics and make it an Accelerated Mobile Pages site from the start.

3. Less control of your content

Because AMP is a stripped-down version of your original content, you are at Google’s mercy when it comes to how (and even if) your content is actually displayed. You give up the overall styling of your page in return for a really quick download.

Furthermore, if your site features a lot of videos, Accelerated Mobile Pages would not be that beneficial for you as the download time would pretty much remain the same.

4. Less control of your design

Basically, Google is “forking” the web into a version of the internet that looks exactly like Google wants. The amount of tags is very limited, so most Accelerated Mobile Pages have a very plain look — a custom web development becomes a sort of an unrealistic and unnecessary field.

5. Harder to spot “fake news” stories

With more and more emphasis being placed on the damaging effects of fake news, AMP makes it even harder for readers to spot these types of stories. Because AMP strips content down to the bare bones and hosts it all within Google’s server, everything starts to look alike.

6. AMP Websites seemingly are Google controlled

Surprisingly, there are reports that Google is mostly preoccupied with chasing their competition lately. Likewise, the Accelerated Mobile Pages introduction seems to be Google chasing Facebook / Instagram / Messenger ecosystem: carousels, instant articles, stories.

Whereby, Accelerated Mobile Pages works the same way to bring the content into Google’s properties: search result pages and Gmail. As a matter of fact, not everyone feels comfortable to give up their content and let it be served from Google’s cache. But not every webmaster acknowledges their choices!

Most important thing is, Google is pushing Accelerated Mobile Pages adoption by their regular means of propaganda. Whereas, for your information “AMP sites will rank higher on Google!”