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I think the point of AMP is it gives Google a simple and reliable way to detect fast rendering pages that render well on mobile in a way that can't be easily ga

I think the point of AMP is it gives Google a simple and reliable way to detect fast rendering pages that render well on mobile in a way that can't be easily gamed. When you allow unrestricted usage of JavaScript that's changing page content, loading styles etc. for example, detecting pages like this is more difficult. You can write performant pages without AMP but how would Google reliably detect pages like this? I'm not saying AMP is the best solution and I can see why some developers have objections against it but I think I understand what it's trying to do.

manigandham 9y ago
> Google reliably detect pages like this? The same way it reliable detects the content of the site and everything else. Take a snapshot and keep the latest history. You can easily change the content on a page with javascript so Google still needs to load everything to get an accurate representation. Since there are plenty of tools already (including Google's own) that measure page loading speed, it would be trivial to combine them into a performance score for search rankings. If speed was actually made into a strong signal, major websites would've become as fast as AMP within months.
- seanwilson 9y ago
  > The same way it reliable detects the content of the site and everything else. Take a snapshot and keep the latest history. Wouldn't benchmarking page speed accurately for all pages on a website for a variety of screen sizes on a regular basis cost significant resources? If it's so easy, why are they not doing this already? What I meant about AMP is that when a page validates as an AMP page you know there's certain things it can and can't do. This makes the task of identifying performant pages significantly easier.
  - manigandham 9y ago
    Benchmarking is just logging the time taken during the process of waiting for the content to load, which is already happening to index the page. No special framework necessary. They aren't doing it because AMP gives far more data and keeps first party cookies because of the cached domain.
    - seanwilson 9y ago
      > Benchmarking is just logging the time taken during the process of waiting for the content to load I don't think it's as simple as you make out at all. Compared to just downloading the HTML and checking its contents, this requires executing JavaScript and rendering content in an actual browser which is orders of magnitude slower and more resource intensive.
      - kmonsen 9y ago
        And can be gamed by detecting Google and serving different content to users that if slower.
      - manigandham 9y ago
        That's exactly what happens already because javascript can also change content, including all the React/SPA sites now. They've been doing it for years: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/05/understanding-web-pages-better.html https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/05/understanding-web-...
JoshMnem 9y ago
> I think I understand what it's trying to do. It's appifying the WWW on Google's domain and allowing them to dictate how sites are monetized. On the most basic level, it isn't motivated by speed.
- seanwilson 9y ago
  > On the most basic level, it isn't motivated by speed. So you think Google has no interest in making search results load faster and this factor is just a ploy?
  - JoshMnem 9y ago
    There are employees there who probably buy the idea that it's motivated by speed, but the project wasn't created primarily for speed, just like Chrome wasn't primarily motivated by the need to make a better browser. (Both are about advertising.)
    - seanwilson 9y ago
      > There are employees there who probably buy the idea that it's motivated by speed, but the project wasn't created primarily for speed, just like Chrome wasn't primarily motivated by the need to make a better browser You have evidence of these two claims or you're speculating?
      - dmitriid 9y ago
        AMP tech leads especially. For a quick glimpse you can read this: https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/standardizing-lessons-learned-from-amp/ https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/standardizing-lesso...
        seanwilson 9y ago
        Where does this say AMP wasn't motivated by speed? From the link: > We started working on AMP because we were seeing the mobile web feel clunky and slow, falling behind the tightly-integrated, highly-optimized user experiences that walled garden platforms can offer. Yet we also knew there wasn’t a fundamental technology problem: you could build great experiences on the web with the right knowledge, resources, and management support. Thus we set out to create a framework that would provide a well-lit path to building great web-based experiences: AMP would be well documented, easily deployable, validatable, and opinionated about user-first principles.
dmitriid 9y ago
Nope. The point of AMP is for Google to boost certain high-traffic pages with ads in its search results. Because ads == revenue. Google already has the tools to detect fast rendering pages, though they've more or less stopped talking about them after the introduction of AMP.

manigandham 9y ago

> Google reliably detect pages like this? The same way it reliable detects the content of the site and everything else. Take a snapshot and keep the latest history. You can easily change the content on a page with javascript so Google still needs to load everything to get an accurate representation. Since there are plenty of tools already (including Google's own) that measure page loading speed, it would be trivial to combine them into a performance score for search rankings. If speed was actually made into a strong signal, major websites would've become as fast as AMP within months.

seanwilson 9y ago
> The same way it reliable detects the content of the site and everything else. Take a snapshot and keep the latest history. Wouldn't benchmarking page speed accurately for all pages on a website for a variety of screen sizes on a regular basis cost significant resources? If it's so easy, why are they not doing this already? What I meant about AMP is that when a page validates as an AMP page you know there's certain things it can and can't do. This makes the task of identifying performant pages significantly easier.
- manigandham 9y ago
  Benchmarking is just logging the time taken during the process of waiting for the content to load, which is already happening to index the page. No special framework necessary. They aren't doing it because AMP gives far more data and keeps first party cookies because of the cached domain.
  - seanwilson 9y ago
    > Benchmarking is just logging the time taken during the process of waiting for the content to load I don't think it's as simple as you make out at all. Compared to just downloading the HTML and checking its contents, this requires executing JavaScript and rendering content in an actual browser which is orders of magnitude slower and more resource intensive.
    - kmonsen 9y ago
      And can be gamed by detecting Google and serving different content to users that if slower.
    - manigandham 9y ago
      That's exactly what happens already because javascript can also change content, including all the React/SPA sites now. They've been doing it for years: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/05/understanding-web-pages-better.html https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/05/understanding-web-...

JoshMnem 9y ago

> I think I understand what it's trying to do. It's appifying the WWW on Google's domain and allowing them to dictate how sites are monetized. On the most basic level, it isn't motivated by speed.

seanwilson 9y ago
> On the most basic level, it isn't motivated by speed. So you think Google has no interest in making search results load faster and this factor is just a ploy?
- JoshMnem 9y ago
  There are employees there who probably buy the idea that it's motivated by speed, but the project wasn't created primarily for speed, just like Chrome wasn't primarily motivated by the need to make a better browser. (Both are about advertising.)
  - seanwilson 9y ago
    > There are employees there who probably buy the idea that it's motivated by speed, but the project wasn't created primarily for speed, just like Chrome wasn't primarily motivated by the need to make a better browser You have evidence of these two claims or you're speculating?
    - dmitriid 9y ago
      AMP tech leads especially. For a quick glimpse you can read this: https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/standardizing-lessons-learned-from-amp/ https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/standardizing-lesso...
      - seanwilson 9y ago
        Where does this say AMP wasn't motivated by speed? From the link: > We started working on AMP because we were seeing the mobile web feel clunky and slow, falling behind the tightly-integrated, highly-optimized user experiences that walled garden platforms can offer. Yet we also knew there wasn’t a fundamental technology problem: you could build great experiences on the web with the right knowledge, resources, and management support. Thus we set out to create a framework that would provide a well-lit path to building great web-based experiences: AMP would be well documented, easily deployable, validatable, and opinionated about user-first principles.

dmitriid 9y ago

Nope. The point of AMP is for Google to boost certain high-traffic pages with ads in its search results. Because ads == revenue. Google already has the tools to detect fast rendering pages, though they've more or less stopped talking about them after the introduction of AMP.