14 ms·

Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

342 points by akras14 10y ago

csmajorfive 10y ago
It's nice to see Google investing in direct responses to the community. If you build a developer product, monitoring HN for criticism and responding is very high ROI. Few companies actually do this.
woliveirajr 10y ago
End users, in generall, don't know and don't mind about these complaints against AMP. What matters is if one gets the results he was searching for. And somehow those pages that have "amp" written nearby open faster, so let's click more on those. Market pressure will drive decisions on whether it's better have amped pages (with those claimed drawbacks) or try to capture attention to the whole site with navigation and lighter pages. And as a prisoner's dilemma, if sites that don't have amp are as fast as the amped, having "amp" near your link won't matter. If they are slower, the distinction will matter, independently of your specific optimization.
dingo_bat 10y ago
So basically this guy says all of the issues are by design and you can choose not to use amp if you don't like all of it. Google isn't going to penalize non amp pages in search ranking. They are just going to not show your page in the carousel. I think it's a pretty fair position to take. If you don't like amp don't use it. We'll see if amp catches on over a period of time.
- cyrusshepard 10y ago
  Yes, accept our platform, design choices, and navigation framing or we won't put you in a competitive position with other search results. While AMP isn't a ranking factor (Google has stated this) AMP results are displayed more prominently. Arm twisting at it's finest.
  - bemmu 10y ago
    Even if AMP isn't a ranking factor, clickthrough rates may be. If users click more on AMP links, then by improving CTR it could also indirectly improve ranking.
- sk5t 10y ago
  "Gosh, I mean, you have a right to sell oil, sure, but maybe if you play by our rules, you'll have an easier time shipping it on the rail networks we own." It's plainly Standard Oil-style monopoly behavior from Google here.
  - djur 10y ago
    It seems more like UPS saying "hey, we'll ship whatever you want (within reason) but if you can fit it in one of our standard box sizes it'll get there faster and cheaper". What is the ulterior motive or side benefit Google gets from people adopting AMP? Honest question.
    - jotto 10y ago
      The problem is that if you don't play by their "standard box" rules, you may not end up in the truck at all. The users browsing the AMP results may never feel compelled to scroll down to see non AMP results. So a publisher's choice isn't: "standard size for faster delivery", it's: "use AMP or receive less traffic than you're currently receiving"
    - cpeterso 10y ago
      AMP articles keeps users browsing within Google's properties, with Google's tracking and ads. Non-AMP news pages are an exit out of Google's sphere, where users will get non-Google tracking and ads. That said, I find myself clicking AMP articles 5x more than non-AMP news links because I know the AMP articles will be fast and clean.
      - bduerst 10y ago
        It's using the same libraries and third party pixels as publishers were before.
      - bduerst 10y ago
        It's using the same libraries and third party pixels as publishers were before.
    - 10y ago
- criddell 10y ago
  Amp isn't ideal, but neither is Instant Articles on Facebook. I'm hoping that Amp is really just Google training publishers how to make web pages that aren't terrible for users.
  - dingo_bat 10y ago
    Instant articles is even worse, IMO. But Facebook is not pretending it's the next version of the Web. Google is, so they set up an expectation of Web like behaviors.
    - RodericDay 10y ago
      internet.org?
    - criddell 10y ago
      So what would you have done if you were in charge at Google? At the time Amp was announced, Facebook's Instant Articles was really taking off. It was by far the best place to read news online and arguably still is. To get a similar experience outside of Facebook (before Amp) you had to use an ad blocker. Right around that time, Apple added support for ad blocking in iOS and suddenly ad supported content outside of Facebook was looking unsustainable.
      - kuschku 10y ago
        > So what would you have done if you were in charge at Google? File an antitrust complaint against Facebook, sue Facebook, and get a warrant to get Instant Articles instantly shut down? > suddenly ad supported content outside of Facebook was looking unsustainable And just pivot regarding that?
  - ryanobjc 10y ago
    well, AMP is open source. Instant Articles is not. AMP works on many platforms, Bing just announced support of AMP. So, what's the big deal?
cyrusshepard 10y ago
This is a good response and I appreciate Malte's effort to engage publishers, but it doesn't calm my nerves about the biggest publisher complaint about AMP: Google owns the chrome (top navigation) on all AMP pages. This makes it easy to navigate back to Google (why would you ever want to leave?) and other publishers in the AMP ecosystem, but much harder to navigate to the publisher that created the page in the first place In essence, this means that what was once a publisher-owned page is now shared property: between the Google and the publisher. By controlling the top navigation, Google more easily controls the content the visitor sees, keeps visitors on Google longer, provides greater opportunity to track visitors, and perhaps most importantly has the opportunity to earn more ad revenue. Now imagine if this was a requirement for ALL pages served in Google search results. You publish a page and it appears in Google, but when the user clicks on it Google has pasted a new navigation on the top of your page. This is exactly what is happening with AMP. This is especially troubling in light of all the anti-trust controversies Google is finding itself in, both in the US and abroad. A recent study showed that 49% of all Google clicks go to Google properties of one kind or another (Maps, YouTube, Ads, etc) http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/intro-to-mozcon-2016/24-Lots_of_NoClick_Searches_in http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/intro-to-mozcon-2016/24-L... Does AMP count as another Google property that will push more than 49% of clicks their way? Hard to say, but it's a disturbing trend for a monopoly and a hard pill for publishers to swallow.
- MarkMc 10y ago
  > This makes it ... much harder to navigate to the publisher that created the page in the first place What makes it hard? People click on links to navigate around the publisher's web site, and you can still have links in the AMP landing page.
  - cyrusshepard 10y ago
    All these navigation elements are secondary, and further down the page. You have a point that if the user wants to, they are free to click any link they want. The fact remains that the top-most, primary navigation element on an AMP page is an "X" that closes you out of the publisher's page to send you back to Google. After that, the second most prominent navigation element invites you to browse other publishers. By design, the publisher's own links must come after these two elements.
stygiansonic 10y ago
Previous HN comments on the original story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722590
matt4077 10y ago
Yeah, I was quite surprised how positive a reaction the original complaint got, considering it was long-winded, repetitive, and seemed to go out of its way to misunderstand AMP. The only valid criticism appears to be how google displays search results using its own URL and this toolbar – it seems to break rather fundamental assumption about http and has the potential to break all sorts of tools that rely on the established structure of the web and open standards, as has already happened with the refer(r)er as mentioned in this response. I wonder if there's a way to get the same result without rehosting content on their own URL. Couldn't they allow publishers to achieve the same result with a CNAME, possibly for amp.<hostname>.<tld>? And do the google servers add anything beyond being distributed caches? Because if not, it seems this level of indirection is redundant for websites already hosted on CDNs. Regarding the toolbar: yeah, that's a terrible idea. I have no sympathy for publishers who object to it because if it reduces your retention rates there's probably more wrong with the content than the presentation. But as a user, it's the sort of "assisted browsing" that feels intrusive, like resizing the window or a "you need flash" popup (I don't). Considering their market share in browsers isn't far behind the in search, I wonder why that function isn't just a chrome feature. Funny thing is: it's a feature that exists in Safari ("Search results snapback").
- peder541 10y ago
  If you look at the AMP docs (https://www.ampproject.org/docs/guides/discovery https://www.ampproject.org/docs/guides/discovery), publishers use <link> tags to point to the AMP page. For the original article, the AMP version lives at https://www.alexkras.com/google-may-be-stealing-your-mobile-traffic/amp/ https://www.alexkras.com/google-may-be-stealing-your-mobile-... but the URL could follow whatever scheme the publisher wants. Since Google search is most likely discovering the AMP page via the <link rel="amphtml"> tag, they really should just use that URL. The Google servers do add a couple minor things beyond being a distributed cache though. First, there's swipe navigation to other articles if the link was located in the top carousel in search results. Second, if you are on a laptop, the Google servers will redirect you to the full version rather than use the AMP cache.
rahrahrah 10y ago
He avoids really hard addressing the only bit that matters > Guess what happens when the "close" button is clicked inside the AMP view? And the amount of disingenuous on this just rubs me the wrong way: > If you are not comfortable with traffic on your AMP pages, please do not publish AMP pages.
- cramforce 10y ago
  Happy to address the close button: You are on a search page, you go on layer deep by clicking. The close button goes back. I don't see what else it should do. Mind you that I do understand that a link to the origin server would be a good improvement (and I've stated that in the post). I'm not sure what you find disingenuous. AMP are just web pages saying "HEY I A AMP, please use treat me as AMP". You can publish the same bytes minus the "HEY I A AMP" and get the old behavior.
  - stuartaxelowen 10y ago
    The internet is about hyperlinks, not hierarchical views - this move by Google feels very disingenuous.
  - poxrud 10y ago
    "You can publish the same bytes minus the "HEY I A AMP" and get the old behavior". Yes but then you won't get the AMP icon next to your page when it comes up in the search results. Over time users will become conditioned to prefer clicking on AMP enabled links. With the icon you are basically categorizing the search results into "really fast sites" and "regular speed or slow sites", even though it is perfectly possible to achieve the same AMP speeds without using AMP.
  - callalex 10y ago
    Would you agree that the completely standards compliant, well-understood-by-users back button already replicates that behavior perfectly? Why does the close button have to have a different icon for the exact same purpose, if not to deceive?
aeharding 10y ago
So if I built my own personal ad network, I could make a PR and have it be accepted?
- gibrown 10y ago
  Many PRs doing just that: https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr%20label%3A%22Related%20to%3A%20Ads%22%20is%3Aclosed%20 https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q...
- cramforce 10y ago
  Somebody is currently doing that: An external contributor is currently building first class support for "My simple ad network that just wants to put an image with a link on the page" https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5541 https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5541 There are other ways to do it, though.
  - shostack 10y ago
    I've heard a lot of discussion in the ad community around how this limits competition of ad networks. Yes, it is awesome you have many on board for launch, but what of the ones who are not? Is there a publicly available process for getting included along with guidelines to set reasonable expectations for whether one will be included? If so, I'd love a link.
    - cramforce 10y ago
      See https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/ads/README.md https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/ads/README... I think with the numbers of ad tech companies coming on board every week one can safely say that the process is working for them.
gleb 10y ago
As a user I've learned to avoid AMP pages because the UX is horrible: * back button is broken 1/2 the time * the bar wastes 1/3 of my screen * I can no longer see what site I am on in the url * it's hard to navigate to the / of the site * I can't forward the link * being on a good network in US it solves no problem that I have What I'd really like to see is a way to opt-out of seeing AMP'ed pages in my search results. Or at least a way to navigate from AMP page to its native version. Further, I noticed that AMP is a signal for low quality content. I am guessing sophisticated publishers are conservative enough to wait and see. And individuals haven't bothered dealing with it. So you get low-end publishers in between.
- epmatsw 10y ago
  Interesting. As a user, I've learned to only click on AMP results. They load quickly and reliably (no blank white site) even on LTE, and they never have intrusive adds. If they added an option for "only show me AMP unless I click a button to ask for the other junk", I would opt in day 1.
  - EugeneOZ 10y ago
    Only content owner should decide what ad will be shown. Offending this rule means breaking deals with advertisers, it's reputation losses.
- Lxr 10y ago
  Agree it's a signal for low-quality bordering-on-clickbait content, so subconsciously also find myself avoiding them. Unrelated: formatting lists like in your comment makes them really hard to read on mobile.
  - gleb 10y ago
    Thanks, formatting fixed.
- awesomepantsm 10y ago
  Visiting non-AMP sites on mobile is masochistic (e.g. try searching news results). You get basically all the same problems, but also pop-unders, late loading ads, greedy javascript, autoplaying videos, and other bad behavior. The AMP is really quite solid for the news use case, in my experience.
TheAceOfHearts 10y ago
Does Google have any plans to let users opt out? Maybe an icon that takes you to the original? I tried opening the AMP link in a new tab and it took me to the site, so at least there's a workaround. Since I normally use Firefox Mobile (has to try it with Chrome), I don't get the AMP icon and I'm taken to the requested site. I'm guessing this functionality is limited to Chrome and (maybe?) Safari on mobile. AMP is attempting to solving a challenging problem, and although I don't personally agree with their solution, I've gotta recognize that opening the embedded AMP version of the page from the result of "git tips" was faster on Chrome than on Firefox. I'm hopeful that the lessons learned from this will be pushed upstream and help improve the web.
- cramforce 10y ago
  AMP works great in Firefox (modulo this bug right now https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5479 https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5479 :) and all other modernish browsers. Google Search currently chooses not to display it for FX, but that is not due to a limitation in AMP.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    Instead, it’s because Google Search artificially penalizes Firefox users, and even removes search options for them. There’s been discussion about adding Google Search to the list of sites for which Firefox Mobile always serves a faked User Agent because of this hostile and anticompetitive behaviour before.
StephenConnell 10y ago
If hacker news had a speed rating next to the links I would probably click on them more instead of just reading the comments to decide if it's worth pulling up an article. Note, It has been suggested that a speed rating on Google would be equivalent to the amp experience with less Google control.
- 50CNT 10y ago
  Speed also depends on where you are geographically. Amazon.com is probably faster than Taobao.com in the States, but I'd have the opposite experience over here in China. But then Google is the slowest this side of the GFW, so that might be redundant.
  - StephenConnell 10y ago
    True, but Google knows where you are and could test the site from that general region. It would cause additional overhead for Google but may be worth it. Page render speed is just as important as server speed. A website bloated with ads is what I object to the most, or any type of pop over that obstructs the content.
    - 50CNT 10y ago
      I wonder whether they incorporate these things into their ranking metrics already, similar to how they do their Quality Scores for Adwords.
      - StephenConnell 10y ago
        Good question, in 2010 Google said that they "... today we're including a new signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed. Site speed reflects how quickly a website responds to web requests." [1] I believe that page speed is also important, google provides PageSpeed Insights to help you improve your site. [2] [1] https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html?m=1 https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-i... [2] PageSpeed Insights https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
codezero 10y ago
Am I being uncharitable in saying the TLDR is: This is working as expected and you need to do more work to make AMP work for you? Why can't it work with templates, why does content that was created need to be created again for AMP? This doesn't seem very scalable. Also, the attribution for ads and analytics basically means you need to reimplement your entire tracking code within the schema and spec of AMP's analytics attributes which only supports a subset of existing providers rather than allowing an abstract interface. Also to the point that AMP doesn't affect search position, is this true if someone serves a shitty AMP page? Or is it only true that it won't boost position?
- cramforce 10y ago
  Well, it certainly works with templates (like the WordPress AMP plugin), but that only gets you that far. It is definitely work to adopt AMP, but most people who have done it are pretty happy with the workflow. We are always listening for feedback, though, and are looking for ways to make it easier.
Sephr 10y ago
As positive as the response sounds, it is an empty promise. > We’re looking at ways to make the source link more discoverable and will update once that is done. If Google was actually going to fix the issue, they would have said "we will make the close button direct users to the original site and will update once that is done" OR "we are changing the x (close) button to a ← (back) button". "x" means "close" and "←" means "back". This is confusing UX at the least and arguably a dark pattern.
- andrewguenther 10y ago
  Am I in the minority in that I found the function of the "x" to be very clear? I don't know if it is fair to call it "nothing less than a dark pattern" without a bit more data.
  - cramforce 10y ago
    That is where we currently are. In our user testing it tests really well, but there appears to be confusion in this community which would be good to address. My current feature request is to link the "publisher domain" to the origin article, so that one can always click that to get there and use it to copy the link.
  - Sephr 10y ago
    Yeah, I toned down my response, since it's not intentionally a dark pattern.
  - thomasahle 10y ago
    Yup, everytime I've seen this X button, clicking it has done exactly what I expected. I've also sometimes been on a non AMP version, and Chrome has suggested "a version optimized for mobile". Clicking that has opened the AMP version and after reading the article, clicking the X took me back to the non AMP version.
- wmf 10y ago
  I don't understand why AMP even has that close button. But taking the user to the original site would just appear to reload the page, only slower.
chiefalchemist 10y ago
Google has their version of the internet. Facebook has their version of the internet. As time slides forward just think of how many users won't know the real internet from these rubber doll versions. Congrats humanity. Your best invention ever and it only 20 years or so to completely fuck it up. This is why we can't have nice things.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ykm 10y ago
  Your response sounds more like the religious groups howling "world will end" whenever a new scientific progress is made. Internet survived because of its obvious commercial value. Google and Facebook are doing nothing new but making their ends meet.
  - mr_luc 10y ago
    Neither of those points are much of a defense. By that same token, one could defend e.g. Microsoft's aggressive misuse of their market dominance in the 90's: 'Windows survived because of its obvious value; MS is just making ends meet.' It can still be a good or a bad thing for the web as a platform. Hopefully adoption is slow enough that the default behavior of any "blessed" libraries like this WP plugin can be encouraged to be less ... well, not evil, of course ... but really, why does that toolbar and 'X' need to be there? Browsers have a back button. My take is simply that this is not a good look for Google, and hopefully they realize that. The article featuring the WP plugin, and these discussions on HN that give a lot of attention to the carousel, and how it competes with non-AMP results, don't build goodwill for the project.
- visarga 10y ago
  People need to own the means of production. In this case, it's the search engine and social network. We can't rely on companies, because they are greedy, nor on government, because it is corrupt. This is what happens when we don't own the tools we use - we are subject to exploitation, others making fortunes on our backs and abusing us by incessant tracking. I'm amazed that there is no federated (not owned by a single entity), anonymous search engine to this day and we're still pouring our brains into Google. Google knows more about a person than his spouse, doctor and lawyer put together!
jasonhansel 10y ago
I don't see why Google needs to have its own cache for AMP pages. If a publisher has its own fast CDN, why not just let it serve the AMP pages from its own domain?
- cramforce 10y ago
  The pre-rendering is one feature that requires a trust relationship between the host (to only serve valid AMP) and the platform. Otherwise the page may e.g. use a lot of CPU while in the background.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    So you’re saying AMP doesn’t actually speed up pages at all, and it’s only sped up because you pre-render? You just admitted the purpose of AMP being moot.
SakiWatanabe 10y ago
so how do i view the original page...?
mthoms 10y ago
There's also this little chestnut: http://searchengineland.com/google-amp-will-override-app-deep-links-foreseeable-future-259905 http://searchengineland.com/google-amp-will-override-app-dee... TL;DR Google AMP also hijacks app deep links
pmontra 10y ago
> “If Google cares so much about the mobile experience, why cover 15% of the small mobile screen with a fat bar at the top?” > The Android users might have already noticed that it is now scrolling out of the way It doesn't scroll away. Just checked on Google news with both Chrome and Opera. Android 6. Am I missing something?
deleted 10y ago
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nv-vn 10y ago
Am I the only one here who has never seen an AMP site in the wild? Seems people in the comments are super familiar with the service.
- probably_wrong 10y ago
  I have never seen one either, but I don't use Google search anymore. Perhaps you don't use it either?
- AndrewDucker 10y ago
  I think they only appear if you're using Google Search from Mobile.
- qilo 10y ago
  I've never seen too, and I use only Google search (though not on Android).
- ozgung 10y ago
  I use google search and chrome on Android and haven't seen one either. I don't see the AMP icon when I search for 'git tips'. Maybe it's US only for now.
ComodoHacker 10y ago
>Hey, this is Malte and I am the tech lead of the AMP Project for Google. Of all his 725-words response only 18 words directly address the problem: >We’re looking at ways to make the source link more discoverable and will update once that is done. That's 2.5%. Is he really a tech lead?
- jrockway 10y ago
  This seems to compare favorably with the original article. How much information density are you expecting? Then you go on to imply that he's unqualified to be a TL because you don't like his polite and conversational tone in an article that criticized his project? I just don't understand HN anymore.
  - ComodoHacker 10y ago
    >I didn't imply anything you've said. I just noticed that his response looks like a product of PR or marketing department rather then tech lead. A appreciate the fact of quick reply, even if half of the credit for it should go to HN discussion.
    - jrockway 10y ago
      Everyone has to do PR to some extent. One misplaced word will create 100 comments on HN complaining about it ;)
  - akras14 10y ago
    I wrote the article and I agree. I brought up a lot of things without (as it's apparent to me now) clearly stating which were my fault (mostly everything) and what I blamed on Google.
EugeneOZ 10y ago
Doesn't convince me. Top bar is the biggest problem and they are "working on it"™ (we all know what does it mean) and "it will be landed in Chrome soon", when Chrome is not only browser in the world of mobile devices. Also from this response I see they want to make Chrome the new IE (if problem is solved in Chrome - it's solved), and it's frustrating.
UweSchmidt 10y ago
"The original idea behind AMP was to allow content to be distributed to platforms (such as Google, Twitter and Pinterest) in a way that retains branding and monetization control for the publisher. AMP traffic is the publisher’s traffic. Period." So far I haven't thought of Google as a platform like Twitter or Pinterest. I thought there was a free web with Google and Bing and good old Altavista searching and indexing it. Is making a website now similar to posting something on Facebook? Or why would they have to assure you that your traffic is your traffic, "period"? If that's the case we need an urgent change in direction!
whiddershins 10y ago
I'm interested in the intellectual property aspect of this. Why exactly is it permissible for Google to "cache" my page and then serve it up to users? That's literally them copying my page to their own servers, which is my content, my intellectual property, and then serving it up however they like. I'm a little confused how that is legal.
deleted 10y ago
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xg15 10y ago
I think one important point is hidden within this sentence: "The original idea behind AMP was to allow content to be distributed to platforms (such as Google, Twitter and Pinterest) in a way that retains [...] control for the publisher." (emphasis mine) So Google sees itself as a platform in the tradition of Twitter and Pinterest - i.e. a controlled space on which content (with more or less control by the authors) is published. That's a significant difference to the gateway to the open web that they primarily still are at the moment.
- bo1024 10y ago
  I agree, this is the key insight. Google sees itself as moving toward what I see as a more reddit-like model. People might occasionally click away on links to other sites, but the idea is to keep them on Google's "platform" by default. That's why clicking "X" means "go back to Google", because in this model, you never left. You just temporarily viewed some content in a pane which you are now closing.
- Jordrok 10y ago
  Yeah, that line really stood out to me too. Google is attempting to shift away from being a search tool which funnels users to a destination site, and instead become the destination itself, where sites submit their content in search of users.
forgotAgain 10y ago
If it was Verizon or AT&T or some other ISP doing this there would be outrage. But I guess it's cool if it's Google.
bhartzer 10y ago
One of the problems here is that when users click on a search result (marked AMP in Google's SERPs), they expect to visit a website. Instead, they visit a cached version of the page, on Google's site. This is deceiving. If Google's going to cache the page, then there should be a "cache" link so the user knows that they're clicking on a cached version of the page. Otherwise, deliver the user to the site that they think they're clicking on.

342 points by akras14 10y ago

It's nice to see Google investing in direct responses to the community. If you build a developer product, monitoring HN for criticism and responding is very high ROI. Few companies actually do this.

woliveirajr 10y ago

End users, in generall, don't know and don't mind about these complaints against AMP. What matters is if one gets the results he was searching for. And somehow those pages that have "amp" written nearby open faster, so let's click more on those. Market pressure will drive decisions on whether it's better have amped pages (with those claimed drawbacks) or try to capture attention to the whole site with navigation and lighter pages. And as a prisoner's dilemma, if sites that don't have amp are as fast as the amped, having "amp" near your link won't matter. If they are slower, the distinction will matter, independently of your specific optimization.

dingo_bat 10y ago

So basically this guy says all of the issues are by design and you can choose not to use amp if you don't like all of it. Google isn't going to penalize non amp pages in search ranking. They are just going to not show your page in the carousel. I think it's a pretty fair position to take. If you don't like amp don't use it. We'll see if amp catches on over a period of time.

cyrusshepard 10y ago
Yes, accept our platform, design choices, and navigation framing or we won't put you in a competitive position with other search results. While AMP isn't a ranking factor (Google has stated this) AMP results are displayed more prominently. Arm twisting at it's finest.
- bemmu 10y ago
  Even if AMP isn't a ranking factor, clickthrough rates may be. If users click more on AMP links, then by improving CTR it could also indirectly improve ranking.
sk5t 10y ago
"Gosh, I mean, you have a right to sell oil, sure, but maybe if you play by our rules, you'll have an easier time shipping it on the rail networks we own." It's plainly Standard Oil-style monopoly behavior from Google here.
- djur 10y ago
  It seems more like UPS saying "hey, we'll ship whatever you want (within reason) but if you can fit it in one of our standard box sizes it'll get there faster and cheaper". What is the ulterior motive or side benefit Google gets from people adopting AMP? Honest question.
  - jotto 10y ago
    The problem is that if you don't play by their "standard box" rules, you may not end up in the truck at all. The users browsing the AMP results may never feel compelled to scroll down to see non AMP results. So a publisher's choice isn't: "standard size for faster delivery", it's: "use AMP or receive less traffic than you're currently receiving"
  - cpeterso 10y ago
    AMP articles keeps users browsing within Google's properties, with Google's tracking and ads. Non-AMP news pages are an exit out of Google's sphere, where users will get non-Google tracking and ads. That said, I find myself clicking AMP articles 5x more than non-AMP news links because I know the AMP articles will be fast and clean.
    - bduerst 10y ago
      It's using the same libraries and third party pixels as publishers were before.
    - bduerst 10y ago
      It's using the same libraries and third party pixels as publishers were before.
  - 10y ago
criddell 10y ago
Amp isn't ideal, but neither is Instant Articles on Facebook. I'm hoping that Amp is really just Google training publishers how to make web pages that aren't terrible for users.
- dingo_bat 10y ago
  Instant articles is even worse, IMO. But Facebook is not pretending it's the next version of the Web. Google is, so they set up an expectation of Web like behaviors.
  - RodericDay 10y ago
    internet.org?
  - criddell 10y ago
    So what would you have done if you were in charge at Google? At the time Amp was announced, Facebook's Instant Articles was really taking off. It was by far the best place to read news online and arguably still is. To get a similar experience outside of Facebook (before Amp) you had to use an ad blocker. Right around that time, Apple added support for ad blocking in iOS and suddenly ad supported content outside of Facebook was looking unsustainable.
    - kuschku 10y ago
      > So what would you have done if you were in charge at Google? File an antitrust complaint against Facebook, sue Facebook, and get a warrant to get Instant Articles instantly shut down? > suddenly ad supported content outside of Facebook was looking unsustainable And just pivot regarding that?
- ryanobjc 10y ago
  well, AMP is open source. Instant Articles is not. AMP works on many platforms, Bing just announced support of AMP. So, what's the big deal?

cyrusshepard 10y ago

This is a good response and I appreciate Malte's effort to engage publishers, but it doesn't calm my nerves about the biggest publisher complaint about AMP: Google owns the chrome (top navigation) on all AMP pages. This makes it easy to navigate back to Google (why would you ever want to leave?) and other publishers in the AMP ecosystem, but much harder to navigate to the publisher that created the page in the first place In essence, this means that what was once a publisher-owned page is now shared property: between the Google and the publisher. By controlling the top navigation, Google more easily controls the content the visitor sees, keeps visitors on Google longer, provides greater opportunity to track visitors, and perhaps most importantly has the opportunity to earn more ad revenue. Now imagine if this was a requirement for ALL pages served in Google search results. You publish a page and it appears in Google, but when the user clicks on it Google has pasted a new navigation on the top of your page. This is exactly what is happening with AMP. This is especially troubling in light of all the anti-trust controversies Google is finding itself in, both in the US and abroad. A recent study showed that 49% of all Google clicks go to Google properties of one kind or another (Maps, YouTube, Ads, etc) http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/intro-to-mozcon-2016/24-Lots_of_NoClick_Searches_in http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/intro-to-mozcon-2016/24-L... Does AMP count as another Google property that will push more than 49% of clicks their way? Hard to say, but it's a disturbing trend for a monopoly and a hard pill for publishers to swallow.

MarkMc 10y ago
> This makes it ... much harder to navigate to the publisher that created the page in the first place What makes it hard? People click on links to navigate around the publisher's web site, and you can still have links in the AMP landing page.
- cyrusshepard 10y ago
  All these navigation elements are secondary, and further down the page. You have a point that if the user wants to, they are free to click any link they want. The fact remains that the top-most, primary navigation element on an AMP page is an "X" that closes you out of the publisher's page to send you back to Google. After that, the second most prominent navigation element invites you to browse other publishers. By design, the publisher's own links must come after these two elements.

stygiansonic 10y ago

Previous HN comments on the original story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722590

matt4077 10y ago

Yeah, I was quite surprised how positive a reaction the original complaint got, considering it was long-winded, repetitive, and seemed to go out of its way to misunderstand AMP. The only valid criticism appears to be how google displays search results using its own URL and this toolbar – it seems to break rather fundamental assumption about http and has the potential to break all sorts of tools that rely on the established structure of the web and open standards, as has already happened with the refer(r)er as mentioned in this response. I wonder if there's a way to get the same result without rehosting content on their own URL. Couldn't they allow publishers to achieve the same result with a CNAME, possibly for amp.<hostname>.<tld>? And do the google servers add anything beyond being distributed caches? Because if not, it seems this level of indirection is redundant for websites already hosted on CDNs. Regarding the toolbar: yeah, that's a terrible idea. I have no sympathy for publishers who object to it because if it reduces your retention rates there's probably more wrong with the content than the presentation. But as a user, it's the sort of "assisted browsing" that feels intrusive, like resizing the window or a "you need flash" popup (I don't). Considering their market share in browsers isn't far behind the in search, I wonder why that function isn't just a chrome feature. Funny thing is: it's a feature that exists in Safari ("Search results snapback").

peder541 10y ago
If you look at the AMP docs (https://www.ampproject.org/docs/guides/discovery https://www.ampproject.org/docs/guides/discovery), publishers use <link> tags to point to the AMP page. For the original article, the AMP version lives at https://www.alexkras.com/google-may-be-stealing-your-mobile-traffic/amp/ https://www.alexkras.com/google-may-be-stealing-your-mobile-... but the URL could follow whatever scheme the publisher wants. Since Google search is most likely discovering the AMP page via the <link rel="amphtml"> tag, they really should just use that URL. The Google servers do add a couple minor things beyond being a distributed cache though. First, there's swipe navigation to other articles if the link was located in the top carousel in search results. Second, if you are on a laptop, the Google servers will redirect you to the full version rather than use the AMP cache.

rahrahrah 10y ago

He avoids really hard addressing the only bit that matters > Guess what happens when the "close" button is clicked inside the AMP view? And the amount of disingenuous on this just rubs me the wrong way: > If you are not comfortable with traffic on your AMP pages, please do not publish AMP pages.

cramforce 10y ago
Happy to address the close button: You are on a search page, you go on layer deep by clicking. The close button goes back. I don't see what else it should do. Mind you that I do understand that a link to the origin server would be a good improvement (and I've stated that in the post). I'm not sure what you find disingenuous. AMP are just web pages saying "HEY I A AMP, please use treat me as AMP". You can publish the same bytes minus the "HEY I A AMP" and get the old behavior.
- stuartaxelowen 10y ago
  The internet is about hyperlinks, not hierarchical views - this move by Google feels very disingenuous.
- poxrud 10y ago
  "You can publish the same bytes minus the "HEY I A AMP" and get the old behavior". Yes but then you won't get the AMP icon next to your page when it comes up in the search results. Over time users will become conditioned to prefer clicking on AMP enabled links. With the icon you are basically categorizing the search results into "really fast sites" and "regular speed or slow sites", even though it is perfectly possible to achieve the same AMP speeds without using AMP.
- callalex 10y ago
  Would you agree that the completely standards compliant, well-understood-by-users back button already replicates that behavior perfectly? Why does the close button have to have a different icon for the exact same purpose, if not to deceive?

aeharding 10y ago

So if I built my own personal ad network, I could make a PR and have it be accepted?

gibrown 10y ago
Many PRs doing just that: https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr%20label%3A%22Related%20to%3A%20Ads%22%20is%3Aclosed%20 https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q...
cramforce 10y ago
Somebody is currently doing that: An external contributor is currently building first class support for "My simple ad network that just wants to put an image with a link on the page" https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5541 https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5541 There are other ways to do it, though.
- shostack 10y ago
  I've heard a lot of discussion in the ad community around how this limits competition of ad networks. Yes, it is awesome you have many on board for launch, but what of the ones who are not? Is there a publicly available process for getting included along with guidelines to set reasonable expectations for whether one will be included? If so, I'd love a link.
  - cramforce 10y ago
    See https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/ads/README.md https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/ads/README... I think with the numbers of ad tech companies coming on board every week one can safely say that the process is working for them.

gleb 10y ago

As a user I've learned to avoid AMP pages because the UX is horrible: * back button is broken 1/2 the time * the bar wastes 1/3 of my screen * I can no longer see what site I am on in the url * it's hard to navigate to the / of the site * I can't forward the link * being on a good network in US it solves no problem that I have What I'd really like to see is a way to opt-out of seeing AMP'ed pages in my search results. Or at least a way to navigate from AMP page to its native version. Further, I noticed that AMP is a signal for low quality content. I am guessing sophisticated publishers are conservative enough to wait and see. And individuals haven't bothered dealing with it. So you get low-end publishers in between.

epmatsw 10y ago
Interesting. As a user, I've learned to only click on AMP results. They load quickly and reliably (no blank white site) even on LTE, and they never have intrusive adds. If they added an option for "only show me AMP unless I click a button to ask for the other junk", I would opt in day 1.
- EugeneOZ 10y ago
  Only content owner should decide what ad will be shown. Offending this rule means breaking deals with advertisers, it's reputation losses.
Lxr 10y ago
Agree it's a signal for low-quality bordering-on-clickbait content, so subconsciously also find myself avoiding them. Unrelated: formatting lists like in your comment makes them really hard to read on mobile.
- gleb 10y ago
  Thanks, formatting fixed.
awesomepantsm 10y ago
Visiting non-AMP sites on mobile is masochistic (e.g. try searching news results). You get basically all the same problems, but also pop-unders, late loading ads, greedy javascript, autoplaying videos, and other bad behavior. The AMP is really quite solid for the news use case, in my experience.

TheAceOfHearts 10y ago

Does Google have any plans to let users opt out? Maybe an icon that takes you to the original? I tried opening the AMP link in a new tab and it took me to the site, so at least there's a workaround. Since I normally use Firefox Mobile (has to try it with Chrome), I don't get the AMP icon and I'm taken to the requested site. I'm guessing this functionality is limited to Chrome and (maybe?) Safari on mobile. AMP is attempting to solving a challenging problem, and although I don't personally agree with their solution, I've gotta recognize that opening the embedded AMP version of the page from the result of "git tips" was faster on Chrome than on Firefox. I'm hopeful that the lessons learned from this will be pushed upstream and help improve the web.

cramforce 10y ago
AMP works great in Firefox (modulo this bug right now https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5479 https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5479 :) and all other modernish browsers. Google Search currently chooses not to display it for FX, but that is not due to a limitation in AMP.
- kuschku 10y ago
  Instead, it’s because Google Search artificially penalizes Firefox users, and even removes search options for them. There’s been discussion about adding Google Search to the list of sites for which Firefox Mobile always serves a faked User Agent because of this hostile and anticompetitive behaviour before.

StephenConnell 10y ago

If hacker news had a speed rating next to the links I would probably click on them more instead of just reading the comments to decide if it's worth pulling up an article. Note, It has been suggested that a speed rating on Google would be equivalent to the amp experience with less Google control.

50CNT 10y ago
Speed also depends on where you are geographically. Amazon.com is probably faster than Taobao.com in the States, but I'd have the opposite experience over here in China. But then Google is the slowest this side of the GFW, so that might be redundant.
- StephenConnell 10y ago
  True, but Google knows where you are and could test the site from that general region. It would cause additional overhead for Google but may be worth it. Page render speed is just as important as server speed. A website bloated with ads is what I object to the most, or any type of pop over that obstructs the content.
  - 50CNT 10y ago
    I wonder whether they incorporate these things into their ranking metrics already, similar to how they do their Quality Scores for Adwords.
    - StephenConnell 10y ago
      Good question, in 2010 Google said that they "... today we're including a new signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed. Site speed reflects how quickly a website responds to web requests." [1] I believe that page speed is also important, google provides PageSpeed Insights to help you improve your site. [2] [1] https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html?m=1 https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-i... [2] PageSpeed Insights https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

codezero 10y ago

Am I being uncharitable in saying the TLDR is: This is working as expected and you need to do more work to make AMP work for you? Why can't it work with templates, why does content that was created need to be created again for AMP? This doesn't seem very scalable. Also, the attribution for ads and analytics basically means you need to reimplement your entire tracking code within the schema and spec of AMP's analytics attributes which only supports a subset of existing providers rather than allowing an abstract interface. Also to the point that AMP doesn't affect search position, is this true if someone serves a shitty AMP page? Or is it only true that it won't boost position?

cramforce 10y ago
Well, it certainly works with templates (like the WordPress AMP plugin), but that only gets you that far. It is definitely work to adopt AMP, but most people who have done it are pretty happy with the workflow. We are always listening for feedback, though, and are looking for ways to make it easier.

Sephr 10y ago

As positive as the response sounds, it is an empty promise. > We’re looking at ways to make the source link more discoverable and will update once that is done. If Google was actually going to fix the issue, they would have said "we will make the close button direct users to the original site and will update once that is done" OR "we are changing the x (close) button to a ← (back) button". "x" means "close" and "←" means "back". This is confusing UX at the least and arguably a dark pattern.

andrewguenther 10y ago
Am I in the minority in that I found the function of the "x" to be very clear? I don't know if it is fair to call it "nothing less than a dark pattern" without a bit more data.
- cramforce 10y ago
  That is where we currently are. In our user testing it tests really well, but there appears to be confusion in this community which would be good to address. My current feature request is to link the "publisher domain" to the origin article, so that one can always click that to get there and use it to copy the link.
- Sephr 10y ago
  Yeah, I toned down my response, since it's not intentionally a dark pattern.
- thomasahle 10y ago
  Yup, everytime I've seen this X button, clicking it has done exactly what I expected. I've also sometimes been on a non AMP version, and Chrome has suggested "a version optimized for mobile". Clicking that has opened the AMP version and after reading the article, clicking the X took me back to the non AMP version.
wmf 10y ago
I don't understand why AMP even has that close button. But taking the user to the original site would just appear to reload the page, only slower.

chiefalchemist 10y ago

Google has their version of the internet. Facebook has their version of the internet. As time slides forward just think of how many users won't know the real internet from these rubber doll versions. Congrats humanity. Your best invention ever and it only 20 years or so to completely fuck it up. This is why we can't have nice things.

deleted 10y ago
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ykm 10y ago
Your response sounds more like the religious groups howling "world will end" whenever a new scientific progress is made. Internet survived because of its obvious commercial value. Google and Facebook are doing nothing new but making their ends meet.
- mr_luc 10y ago
  Neither of those points are much of a defense. By that same token, one could defend e.g. Microsoft's aggressive misuse of their market dominance in the 90's: 'Windows survived because of its obvious value; MS is just making ends meet.' It can still be a good or a bad thing for the web as a platform. Hopefully adoption is slow enough that the default behavior of any "blessed" libraries like this WP plugin can be encouraged to be less ... well, not evil, of course ... but really, why does that toolbar and 'X' need to be there? Browsers have a back button. My take is simply that this is not a good look for Google, and hopefully they realize that. The article featuring the WP plugin, and these discussions on HN that give a lot of attention to the carousel, and how it competes with non-AMP results, don't build goodwill for the project.
visarga 10y ago
People need to own the means of production. In this case, it's the search engine and social network. We can't rely on companies, because they are greedy, nor on government, because it is corrupt. This is what happens when we don't own the tools we use - we are subject to exploitation, others making fortunes on our backs and abusing us by incessant tracking. I'm amazed that there is no federated (not owned by a single entity), anonymous search engine to this day and we're still pouring our brains into Google. Google knows more about a person than his spouse, doctor and lawyer put together!

jasonhansel 10y ago

I don't see why Google needs to have its own cache for AMP pages. If a publisher has its own fast CDN, why not just let it serve the AMP pages from its own domain?

cramforce 10y ago
The pre-rendering is one feature that requires a trust relationship between the host (to only serve valid AMP) and the platform. Otherwise the page may e.g. use a lot of CPU while in the background.
- kuschku 10y ago
  So you’re saying AMP doesn’t actually speed up pages at all, and it’s only sped up because you pre-render? You just admitted the purpose of AMP being moot.

SakiWatanabe 10y ago

so how do i view the original page...?

mthoms 10y ago

There's also this little chestnut: http://searchengineland.com/google-amp-will-override-app-deep-links-foreseeable-future-259905 http://searchengineland.com/google-amp-will-override-app-dee... TL;DR Google AMP also hijacks app deep links

pmontra 10y ago

> “If Google cares so much about the mobile experience, why cover 15% of the small mobile screen with a fat bar at the top?” > The Android users might have already noticed that it is now scrolling out of the way It doesn't scroll away. Just checked on Google news with both Chrome and Opera. Android 6. Am I missing something?

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nv-vn 10y ago

Am I the only one here who has never seen an AMP site in the wild? Seems people in the comments are super familiar with the service.

probably_wrong 10y ago
I have never seen one either, but I don't use Google search anymore. Perhaps you don't use it either?
AndrewDucker 10y ago
I think they only appear if you're using Google Search from Mobile.
qilo 10y ago
I've never seen too, and I use only Google search (though not on Android).
ozgung 10y ago
I use google search and chrome on Android and haven't seen one either. I don't see the AMP icon when I search for 'git tips'. Maybe it's US only for now.

ComodoHacker 10y ago

>Hey, this is Malte and I am the tech lead of the AMP Project for Google. Of all his 725-words response only 18 words directly address the problem: >We’re looking at ways to make the source link more discoverable and will update once that is done. That's 2.5%. Is he really a tech lead?

jrockway 10y ago
This seems to compare favorably with the original article. How much information density are you expecting? Then you go on to imply that he's unqualified to be a TL because you don't like his polite and conversational tone in an article that criticized his project? I just don't understand HN anymore.
- ComodoHacker 10y ago
  >I didn't imply anything you've said. I just noticed that his response looks like a product of PR or marketing department rather then tech lead. A appreciate the fact of quick reply, even if half of the credit for it should go to HN discussion.
  - jrockway 10y ago
    Everyone has to do PR to some extent. One misplaced word will create 100 comments on HN complaining about it ;)
- akras14 10y ago
  I wrote the article and I agree. I brought up a lot of things without (as it's apparent to me now) clearly stating which were my fault (mostly everything) and what I blamed on Google.

EugeneOZ 10y ago

Doesn't convince me. Top bar is the biggest problem and they are "working on it"™ (we all know what does it mean) and "it will be landed in Chrome soon", when Chrome is not only browser in the world of mobile devices. Also from this response I see they want to make Chrome the new IE (if problem is solved in Chrome - it's solved), and it's frustrating.

UweSchmidt 10y ago

"The original idea behind AMP was to allow content to be distributed to platforms (such as Google, Twitter and Pinterest) in a way that retains branding and monetization control for the publisher. AMP traffic is the publisher’s traffic. Period." So far I haven't thought of Google as a platform like Twitter or Pinterest. I thought there was a free web with Google and Bing and good old Altavista searching and indexing it. Is making a website now similar to posting something on Facebook? Or why would they have to assure you that your traffic is your traffic, "period"? If that's the case we need an urgent change in direction!

whiddershins 10y ago

I'm interested in the intellectual property aspect of this. Why exactly is it permissible for Google to "cache" my page and then serve it up to users? That's literally them copying my page to their own servers, which is my content, my intellectual property, and then serving it up however they like. I'm a little confused how that is legal.

deleted 10y ago

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xg15 10y ago

I think one important point is hidden within this sentence: "The original idea behind AMP was to allow content to be distributed to platforms (such as Google, Twitter and Pinterest) in a way that retains [...] control for the publisher." (emphasis mine) So Google sees itself as a platform in the tradition of Twitter and Pinterest - i.e. a controlled space on which content (with more or less control by the authors) is published. That's a significant difference to the gateway to the open web that they primarily still are at the moment.

bo1024 10y ago
I agree, this is the key insight. Google sees itself as moving toward what I see as a more reddit-like model. People might occasionally click away on links to other sites, but the idea is to keep them on Google's "platform" by default. That's why clicking "X" means "go back to Google", because in this model, you never left. You just temporarily viewed some content in a pane which you are now closing.
Jordrok 10y ago
Yeah, that line really stood out to me too. Google is attempting to shift away from being a search tool which funnels users to a destination site, and instead become the destination itself, where sites submit their content in search of users.

forgotAgain 10y ago

If it was Verizon or AT&T or some other ISP doing this there would be outrage. But I guess it's cool if it's Google.

bhartzer 10y ago

One of the problems here is that when users click on a search result (marked AMP in Google's SERPs), they expect to visit a website. Instead, they visit a cached version of the page, on Google's site. This is deceiving. If Google's going to cache the page, then there should be a "cache" link so the user knows that they're clicking on a cached version of the page. Otherwise, deliver the user to the site that they think they're clicking on.