8 ms·

Wow, 36% of traffic seems pretty high. That's a huge chunk of mobile (79% apparently), with an almost doubled click-through rate. As much as HN loves to bicke

Wow, 36% of traffic seems pretty high. That's a huge chunk of mobile (79% apparently), with an almost doubled click-through rate. As much as HN loves to bicker about Amp, in this case it was clearly a net positive.

ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
Of course it is net positive for the early adopters. Google gives preference to its AMP publishers and its search engine. Once we all switch over in pursuance of the huge gains, the benefits will disappear because the AMP will just be the new cost of entry. And what freedoms will be lost when we are all required to run AMP website?
- recursive 9y ago
  At that point, all the benefits will be reaped by end users. I'm ok with this.
  - throwaway2048 9y ago
    so there is nothing in it for Google?
    - recursive 9y ago
      Oh yeah, good point. There's probably something for them too.
- s17n 9y ago
  Fewer than if we are all required to run Facebook pages.
mrexroad 9y ago
“click through rate from Google search went from 5.9% (Regular) to 10.3% (AMP), and average search position went from 5.9 (Regular) to 1.7 (AMP).” So ranking #2 in search results on average correlated with an increase in click through rate. Oh, btw, just happens that you gotta use AMP to get the SERP gain.
- donohoe 9y ago
  Well, bear in mind the "carousel" of AMP articles that Google shows on results pages. This is where the lift is coming from.
niftich 9y ago
Sure, they want their content to be read, to be "discoverable by the largest possible audience". Meanwhile, "monetization benefits are less decisive and pending further analysis of our current implementation." Publishers find a number of benefits to AMP -- revealed frankly in the article -- but the only reason they use it in the first place is because Google is where a lot of those eyeballs originate anyway. If Some Obscure Search Engine with ~1% marketshare reworked their mobile page to prioritize pages that adhere to some criteria of limitations, used an iframe to frame the content so that it loads inside their page, and threw in a free CDN to sweeten the deal, who'd retool their publishing infrastructure -- as excellently detailed in this post -- to publish in this format? AMP enables an alliance of convenience between one of the top sources of traffic (Google), and the authors of long-form textual content reliant on advertising revenue. To the AMP team's credit, it does so by aligning closer than its competitors to how the web actually works, despite the Google-Search-on-Mobile page then acting as a captive newsreader. Most user criticism of AMP is focused on Google-Search-on-Mobile stealth-morphing into a captive newsreader, while most publisher criticism of AMP is from sites outside of its target market trying out the tech and alarmed at the lack of traffic reaching their server, forgetting that offloading traffic at high volumes is a good thing. AMP isn't for people who are upset that Google is stealing your content; it's for publishers who want Google to expose their content to wide audience and hope to generate revenue through means that correlate to that reach.
- s17n 9y ago
  I think most of the criticism of AMP is the URLs being messed up, which is something that will soon be fixed.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    I don't imagine most publishers would normally place a banner at the top of the page that someone else controls. With an [x] button that closes your page and goes back to that "someone else".
  - donohoe 9y ago
    No. This will not be fixed. As long as they insist on using their CDN then this cannot be avoided.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
This article doesn't address any of the reasons people have issues with AMP. All it confirms is what we already know: That Google gives preferential treatment to sites which use their products and services. And, like many engineering blogs about employing Google products, seems like it might've been suggested by a Google marketing team.
- donohoe 9y ago
  No, in most companies the engineers do not write posts because someone from another company reaches out to the marketing team at that company.... developers don't like that and besides, Oscar is a good guy.
  - oscrperez 9y ago
    For real... Tnx!
- oscrperez 9y ago
  This post is not meant to be a critical piece addressing the issues people have with AMP. That's not the goal here. The goal is to show the reason why we serve AMP content and the tech behind it. There's a lot of conspiracy theories and misunderstanding about how AMP works in the community. AMP is by no means perfect, but its dangers are greatly exaggerated. If you don't trust Google's CDN, no one is forcing you to use Google. The benefits for non-tech users (e.g. my cousin in a 3rd world country with a 2G connection) are there and are clear.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Actually, Google is forcing you to use Google. Because your search rankings are dependent on Google getting to cache your content on Google's CDN. There is no situation where you can have your content only cached on someone else's CDN, and get all of the borderline illegal perks of Google favoring content stored on their servers.
tyingq 9y ago
Moving to AMP puts them in the carousel, so yes, they got more traffic (at lower revenues per visit). Others will move to AMP, then the traffic will wane. Then Google will make their next move. This is exactly how Froogle/Google product search went.
donohoe 9y ago
Yes and no. You can imagine that some of this is new traffic they otherwise would not have gotten and another % is cannibalizing existing traffic they usually get via Google. >> in this case it was clearly a net positive Not so fast. When I was there, the earlier experiment was that its was a "mixed" success. This post also suggests strongly to me that that hasn't changed too much ("Monetization benefits are less decisive and pending further analysis"). For many publishers it comes down to they cant get slightly more traffic with AMP (because of the AMP carousel in Search results) at a lower CPM which is a positive. However, as more publishers come on board that gets tricky all over again and risk of it becoming another race to the bottom of lower CPMs.

ghostbrainalpha 9y ago

Of course it is net positive for the early adopters. Google gives preference to its AMP publishers and its search engine. Once we all switch over in pursuance of the huge gains, the benefits will disappear because the AMP will just be the new cost of entry. And what freedoms will be lost when we are all required to run AMP website?

recursive 9y ago
At that point, all the benefits will be reaped by end users. I'm ok with this.
- throwaway2048 9y ago
  so there is nothing in it for Google?
  - recursive 9y ago
    Oh yeah, good point. There's probably something for them too.
s17n 9y ago
Fewer than if we are all required to run Facebook pages.

mrexroad 9y ago

“click through rate from Google search went from 5.9% (Regular) to 10.3% (AMP), and average search position went from 5.9 (Regular) to 1.7 (AMP).” So ranking #2 in search results on average correlated with an increase in click through rate. Oh, btw, just happens that you gotta use AMP to get the SERP gain.

donohoe 9y ago
Well, bear in mind the "carousel" of AMP articles that Google shows on results pages. This is where the lift is coming from.

niftich 9y ago

Sure, they want their content to be read, to be "discoverable by the largest possible audience". Meanwhile, "monetization benefits are less decisive and pending further analysis of our current implementation." Publishers find a number of benefits to AMP -- revealed frankly in the article -- but the only reason they use it in the first place is because Google is where a lot of those eyeballs originate anyway. If Some Obscure Search Engine with ~1% marketshare reworked their mobile page to prioritize pages that adhere to some criteria of limitations, used an iframe to frame the content so that it loads inside their page, and threw in a free CDN to sweeten the deal, who'd retool their publishing infrastructure -- as excellently detailed in this post -- to publish in this format? AMP enables an alliance of convenience between one of the top sources of traffic (Google), and the authors of long-form textual content reliant on advertising revenue. To the AMP team's credit, it does so by aligning closer than its competitors to how the web actually works, despite the Google-Search-on-Mobile page then acting as a captive newsreader. Most user criticism of AMP is focused on Google-Search-on-Mobile stealth-morphing into a captive newsreader, while most publisher criticism of AMP is from sites outside of its target market trying out the tech and alarmed at the lack of traffic reaching their server, forgetting that offloading traffic at high volumes is a good thing. AMP isn't for people who are upset that Google is stealing your content; it's for publishers who want Google to expose their content to wide audience and hope to generate revenue through means that correlate to that reach.

s17n 9y ago
I think most of the criticism of AMP is the URLs being messed up, which is something that will soon be fixed.
- tyingq 9y ago
  I don't imagine most publishers would normally place a banner at the top of the page that someone else controls. With an [x] button that closes your page and goes back to that "someone else".
- donohoe 9y ago
  No. This will not be fixed. As long as they insist on using their CDN then this cannot be avoided.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

This article doesn't address any of the reasons people have issues with AMP. All it confirms is what we already know: That Google gives preferential treatment to sites which use their products and services. And, like many engineering blogs about employing Google products, seems like it might've been suggested by a Google marketing team.

donohoe 9y ago
No, in most companies the engineers do not write posts because someone from another company reaches out to the marketing team at that company.... developers don't like that and besides, Oscar is a good guy.
- oscrperez 9y ago
  For real... Tnx!
oscrperez 9y ago
This post is not meant to be a critical piece addressing the issues people have with AMP. That's not the goal here. The goal is to show the reason why we serve AMP content and the tech behind it. There's a lot of conspiracy theories and misunderstanding about how AMP works in the community. AMP is by no means perfect, but its dangers are greatly exaggerated. If you don't trust Google's CDN, no one is forcing you to use Google. The benefits for non-tech users (e.g. my cousin in a 3rd world country with a 2G connection) are there and are clear.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Actually, Google is forcing you to use Google. Because your search rankings are dependent on Google getting to cache your content on Google's CDN. There is no situation where you can have your content only cached on someone else's CDN, and get all of the borderline illegal perks of Google favoring content stored on their servers.

tyingq 9y ago

Moving to AMP puts them in the carousel, so yes, they got more traffic (at lower revenues per visit). Others will move to AMP, then the traffic will wane. Then Google will make their next move. This is exactly how Froogle/Google product search went.

donohoe 9y ago

Yes and no. You can imagine that some of this is new traffic they otherwise would not have gotten and another % is cannibalizing existing traffic they usually get via Google. >> in this case it was clearly a net positive Not so fast. When I was there, the earlier experiment was that its was a "mixed" success. This post also suggests strongly to me that that hasn't changed too much ("Monetization benefits are less decisive and pending further analysis"). For many publishers it comes down to they cant get slightly more traffic with AMP (because of the AMP carousel in Search results) at a lower CPM which is a positive. However, as more publishers come on board that gets tricky all over again and risk of it becoming another race to the bottom of lower CPMs.