5 ms·

Why do you think has Google created these restrictions on HTML and CSS code in AMP pages?

davethedevguy 9y ago
I do believe that it is an effort to increase the speed of pages, by preventing content creators from doing things that can harm the user's experience on slower connections - I just don't think it's the right way to go about it. It also has the side-effect that all AMP pages must look fairly similar and 'on brand' for Google - which I doubt is an accident.
- lllr_finger 9y ago
  What's the right way then? When I worked at a media conglomerate, AMP was the only thing that reigned in and enraged the biz-dev and ad-ops departments. I'm still proud that my AMP launch partner pages are out there and serving up content really fast. I hate that it took this to provide that experience, but I prefer it to the FB and AAPL walled garden syndication approach for business and tech reasons.
  - falcolas 9y ago
    The right way: influencing ranking by load times for some exemplar (and easily replicable) device and inter-actability events. That way, sites like HN are boosted to the top, while sites which take 10 seconds for their JS frameworks and ads to load before showing text on the screen are penalized.
    - SquareWheel 9y ago
      Page load speeds are a ranking factor.
      - falcolas 9y ago
        Why add a special ranking for amp pages, if page speed is already a major factor? It would seem like the reality is that page speed is not an important factor, and that re-tuning that factor would have been a better solution if Google's primary concern was for the health of the open web; not just Google's ecosystem.
        SquareWheel 9y ago
        >Why add a special ranking for amp pages, if page speed is already a major factor? I touched on this confusion elsewhere in this thread, but AMP is actually not a ranking factor. The carousel is a vertical which has been integrated into the page. However, I do agree with you. It's confusing to end-users when it's described as a non-ranking factor because it still appears on the search page. It just doesn't influence organic search. I would also like to see page speed become even more important, as performance is very important to user satisfaction. I spend a lot of time trying to minimize bits wherever possible. It's not just pure loading times either, but perceived speed too. Small effects like animations can make a page feel faster, even if it's technically slower.
        kemayo 9y ago
        Mind you, it's at the top, which I think matters regardless of whether it's technically in the search results. It's an implicit "use AMP and we'll show you first" statement.
        falcolas 9y ago
        Amp results being "in a separate vertical" is a distinction without a difference. You do a search, and the amp sites show up at the top of the results page. They are, quite literally, at the top of the search results.
        SquareWheel 9y ago
        I know, but this is a difference in how normal people and search people talk about SERPs. "Ranking factors" almost always refer to organic search. That's part of where this friction has come from. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised to see the carousel disappear once Google deems that AMP has become self-sustaining. I think they're using it as motivation to get publishers on board, and then they'll fall back to regular organic ranking afterwards (to which AMP pages will still benefit). But in the mean time it's causing a lot of consternation.
    - lllr_finger 9y ago
      If a site gets 100m unique in a month they will be at the very top. They can then choose to provide a fast site, or slap on a bunch of analytics, tracking, and 3rd party bloat that provides business intelligence and millions in revenue - while staying ranked at the top. They get to have their cake and eat it too, and there was no incentive (before AMP) to reign that in.
      - falcolas 9y ago
        That's the thing about parameters - they can be tuned. The factor for page speed could have been tuned to matter as much, if not more than their unique views, trashing their ranking the moment they started adding bloat. Google appears to have decided not to, in an apparent effort to boost their ecosystem, at the cost of the open web.
  - davethedevguy 9y ago
    Google has already indicated that they can measure page speed and use it as a ranking factor [1], i would argue that is a better approach. We're being forced to adopt a new subset of HTML, CSS, JS etc. that has been 'approved' by Google. Stopping the bloat of the average web page is an admirable goal, but creating proprietary standards and penalizing those who don't adopt them is at odds with the fundamental ethos of the open-web. I dislike walled gardens such as Facebook too, but I view AMP in much the same way. If a content creator wishes to host their content on their own server, with their own design, their audience is becoming more and more restricted - whether it is by Google promoting their competitor's AMP pages above regular listings, or because many people only view content behind the walls of Facebook etc. Regardless of how fast a page is, content that conforms to Google's new 'standards' will be shown above regular search results. The article sites The Guardian as an example of this, where the non-AMP page is actually quicker, but appears below AMP results. [1] https://searchengineland.com/google-now-counts-site-speed-as-ranking-factor-39708 https://searchengineland.com/google-now-counts-site-speed-as...
drawkbox 9y ago
Why is it Google's job to make your site fast? Google is overstepping their bounds by reducing standards to make their search better ultimately. Very similar to Microsoft in their IE4 overstepping days, led to years of stagnation and problems. Google is actively picking winners and losers based on whether they bend to how Google wants you to make your sites, a bigger encroachment than Microsoft ever made. Businesses don't take on products unless it has a revenue impact to them or control impact. - Do you think AMP is purely just to improve speeds or to get a further grip on content? - Do you believe the business reasons are just to make sites fast? How much is Google costing content creation businesses to implement ANOTHER standard? My guess is Google is going to force AMP into HTML6 or into standard bodies as well like they did with HTTP/2 and how they are now using Chrome like Microsoft used IE to kill common standards and make up their own using their power to force people to use it. AMP is reminiscent of AOL's markup sandbox / terrible browser and Facebook's early specialized markup FBML, both maintained some control but eventually were long drawn out losses. How long until Google starts recompressing images and changing your content? If AMP didn't influence search results in Google would people implement AMP? No as it costs money to change and add new per company standards. AMP is another smell that Google is going too far in control. AMP does make sites faster, but good content sites already know how to do that and they should win in the open market not having to attach on to Google specific (sorry I mean "community" wink) standards. Google regularly now kills common internet standards, offers an alternative that is only their standard, very late 90s Microsoft of them. I love Google but AMP is the first thing that really bothers me because you have to do it now to compete, not because it is necessarily better.

I do believe that it is an effort to increase the speed of pages, by preventing content creators from doing things that can harm the user's experience on slower connections - I just don't think it's the right way to go about it. It also has the side-effect that all AMP pages must look fairly similar and 'on brand' for Google - which I doubt is an accident.

lllr_finger 9y ago
What's the right way then? When I worked at a media conglomerate, AMP was the only thing that reigned in and enraged the biz-dev and ad-ops departments. I'm still proud that my AMP launch partner pages are out there and serving up content really fast. I hate that it took this to provide that experience, but I prefer it to the FB and AAPL walled garden syndication approach for business and tech reasons.
- falcolas 9y ago
  The right way: influencing ranking by load times for some exemplar (and easily replicable) device and inter-actability events. That way, sites like HN are boosted to the top, while sites which take 10 seconds for their JS frameworks and ads to load before showing text on the screen are penalized.
  - SquareWheel 9y ago
    Page load speeds are a ranking factor.
    - falcolas 9y ago
      Why add a special ranking for amp pages, if page speed is already a major factor? It would seem like the reality is that page speed is not an important factor, and that re-tuning that factor would have been a better solution if Google's primary concern was for the health of the open web; not just Google's ecosystem.
      - SquareWheel 9y ago
        >Why add a special ranking for amp pages, if page speed is already a major factor? I touched on this confusion elsewhere in this thread, but AMP is actually not a ranking factor. The carousel is a vertical which has been integrated into the page. However, I do agree with you. It's confusing to end-users when it's described as a non-ranking factor because it still appears on the search page. It just doesn't influence organic search. I would also like to see page speed become even more important, as performance is very important to user satisfaction. I spend a lot of time trying to minimize bits wherever possible. It's not just pure loading times either, but perceived speed too. Small effects like animations can make a page feel faster, even if it's technically slower.
        kemayo 9y ago
        Mind you, it's at the top, which I think matters regardless of whether it's technically in the search results. It's an implicit "use AMP and we'll show you first" statement.
        falcolas 9y ago
        Amp results being "in a separate vertical" is a distinction without a difference. You do a search, and the amp sites show up at the top of the results page. They are, quite literally, at the top of the search results.
        SquareWheel 9y ago
        I know, but this is a difference in how normal people and search people talk about SERPs. "Ranking factors" almost always refer to organic search. That's part of where this friction has come from. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised to see the carousel disappear once Google deems that AMP has become self-sustaining. I think they're using it as motivation to get publishers on board, and then they'll fall back to regular organic ranking afterwards (to which AMP pages will still benefit). But in the mean time it's causing a lot of consternation.
  - lllr_finger 9y ago
    If a site gets 100m unique in a month they will be at the very top. They can then choose to provide a fast site, or slap on a bunch of analytics, tracking, and 3rd party bloat that provides business intelligence and millions in revenue - while staying ranked at the top. They get to have their cake and eat it too, and there was no incentive (before AMP) to reign that in.
    - falcolas 9y ago
      That's the thing about parameters - they can be tuned. The factor for page speed could have been tuned to matter as much, if not more than their unique views, trashing their ranking the moment they started adding bloat. Google appears to have decided not to, in an apparent effort to boost their ecosystem, at the cost of the open web.
- davethedevguy 9y ago
  Google has already indicated that they can measure page speed and use it as a ranking factor [1], i would argue that is a better approach. We're being forced to adopt a new subset of HTML, CSS, JS etc. that has been 'approved' by Google. Stopping the bloat of the average web page is an admirable goal, but creating proprietary standards and penalizing those who don't adopt them is at odds with the fundamental ethos of the open-web. I dislike walled gardens such as Facebook too, but I view AMP in much the same way. If a content creator wishes to host their content on their own server, with their own design, their audience is becoming more and more restricted - whether it is by Google promoting their competitor's AMP pages above regular listings, or because many people only view content behind the walls of Facebook etc. Regardless of how fast a page is, content that conforms to Google's new 'standards' will be shown above regular search results. The article sites The Guardian as an example of this, where the non-AMP page is actually quicker, but appears below AMP results. [1] https://searchengineland.com/google-now-counts-site-speed-as-ranking-factor-39708 https://searchengineland.com/google-now-counts-site-speed-as...

drawkbox 9y ago

Why is it Google's job to make your site fast? Google is overstepping their bounds by reducing standards to make their search better ultimately. Very similar to Microsoft in their IE4 overstepping days, led to years of stagnation and problems. Google is actively picking winners and losers based on whether they bend to how Google wants you to make your sites, a bigger encroachment than Microsoft ever made. Businesses don't take on products unless it has a revenue impact to them or control impact. - Do you think AMP is purely just to improve speeds or to get a further grip on content? - Do you believe the business reasons are just to make sites fast? How much is Google costing content creation businesses to implement ANOTHER standard? My guess is Google is going to force AMP into HTML6 or into standard bodies as well like they did with HTTP/2 and how they are now using Chrome like Microsoft used IE to kill common standards and make up their own using their power to force people to use it. AMP is reminiscent of AOL's markup sandbox / terrible browser and Facebook's early specialized markup FBML, both maintained some control but eventually were long drawn out losses. How long until Google starts recompressing images and changing your content? If AMP didn't influence search results in Google would people implement AMP? No as it costs money to change and add new per company standards. AMP is another smell that Google is going too far in control. AMP does make sites faster, but good content sites already know how to do that and they should win in the open market not having to attach on to Google specific (sorry I mean "community" wink) standards. Google regularly now kills common internet standards, offers an alternative that is only their standard, very late 90s Microsoft of them. I love Google but AMP is the first thing that really bothers me because you have to do it now to compete, not because it is necessarily better.