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This article is not scientific or conclusive and offers poor advice for people wanting to accelerate their content. I am keenly interested in the effectiveness

This article is not scientific or conclusive and offers poor advice for people wanting to accelerate their content. I am keenly interested in the effectiveness of AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) as a content discovery, delivery and filtering system because I "feel the pain" of slow content each/every time I use a 3G (non-wifi) connection. Yes, AMP was developed/sponsored by Google, but that does not make it "bad"... If anything it means Google knows that slow mobile pages "hurt" the web and they are trying to help "fix" the often painful waiting times for loading content on mobile. AMP is an "open-source initiative" however to be "compliant" a page MUST include the AMP JavaScript file: https://ampbyexample.com/introduction/hello_world https://ampbyexample.com/introduction/hello_world For people who are "privacy conscious" this is an obvious "red flag" because you are basically forced to include/load a "tracker" which means Google knows what content is being read. For the vast majority of Publishers who already use Google Analytics including the AMP JS on the page is not a concern. (you are already sending all your usage data to Google...) The OP concludes with: > "I would highly recommend small time bloggers and publishers like myself to avoid wasting their time on AMP." I question the OP's suggestion to avoid AMP as for most "small time bloggers and publishers", having extra content discovery & distribution for not that much extra effort, is well worth the time. Google Does NOT "slow down" AMP pages, much to the contrary, in our experience of Deploying AMP for several content-heavy websites Google both give better ranking and promote AMP pages in the SERPS. (Yes, this is "favouritism" for AMP content, but it's also better for the Users who searched for that content!) Alex's relatively* "flat" traffic (see graphs in article) and the fact that he has been writing more content: "A lot of it can be attributed to me writing additional articles in the last year" Means that the conclusions of the article are "unscientific" at best. I would counter-argue that if he actively supported AMP his traffic would be higher. (and since his blog is ad-supported, he should re-consider...)

JoshMnem 8y ago
AMP is one of the biggest threats to the future of the WWW at the moment. It's an attempt to appify the web on Google's own domain and dictate how you monetize your site. Hand-optimized HTML pages are faster than AMP pages. Here are some links: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/open_source_insider_google_amp_bad_bad_bad/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/open_source_insider... https://80x24.net/post/the-problem-with-amp/ https://80x24.net/post/the-problem-with-amp/ https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/01/09/amp-will-still-suck https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/01/09/amp-will-still-... https://danielmiessler.com/blog/google-amp-not-good-thing/ https://danielmiessler.com/blog/google-amp-not-good-thing/ https://www.google.com/search?q=amp+sucks&num=100 https://www.google.com/search?q=amp+sucks&num=100
- cylinder714 8y ago
  Maciej Cegłowski: http://www.idlewords.com/amp_static.html http://www.idlewords.com/amp_static.html
pknight 8y ago
Excessive quotes or italics detracts from the readability of your comment. > Yes, AMP was developed/sponsored by Google, but that does not make it "bad" Having Google shape the web is what is definitely bad. > For the vast majority of Publishers who already use Google Analytics including the AMP JS on the page is not a concern. (you are already sending all your usage data to Google...) Every site owner gets to decide what analytics package they use without it impeding their results in the search engines. The defaults that websites adopt should not be set in favour of one corporation. Having Google monopolise every space is bad for the web.
- nelsonic 8y ago
  @pknight I agree with you 100%. No corporation should have a monopoly on any aspect of the web. Should there be a truly corporation/platform-agnostic alternative to AMP? Yes! Definitely. Is that happening right now? Sadly not. It appears to take a "big co" to drive it forward. I am merely offering the perspective of the publisher who wants their content to be discovered. Google is (still) the "starting point" for many people. Many people have Google as their default search engine and the ubiquity of Google Chrome on both Desktop and Mobile means that is where people enter their "thoughts" when searching for anything ... If a publisher wants their blog/news/site to be "found", AMP is a really good option because it's "supported" by Google. Rendering AMP-compliant pages does not mean the publisher cannot have an alternative template/view that is even more "optimised" (i.e. without AMP JS) OR a view with ads from a different network or no ads at all. I'm not saying AMP a "good" or "bad" thing, just that it's a tool at the disposal of content publishers which can get them better "discoverability" in Google. Which for most people is a major benefit. Bottom line is: for established publishers who want their content to be "accelerated" on Mobile devices (and thus show up higher in the Google SERPs because Google openly prioritises faster pages/content) and new content producers who want to be "found", AMP is a good way for people who already use Google to discover them. Further reading for people considering AMP: https://moz.com/blog/amp-digital-marketing-2018 https://moz.com/blog/amp-digital-marketing-2018

JoshMnem 8y ago

AMP is one of the biggest threats to the future of the WWW at the moment. It's an attempt to appify the web on Google's own domain and dictate how you monetize your site. Hand-optimized HTML pages are faster than AMP pages. Here are some links: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/open_source_insider_google_amp_bad_bad_bad/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/open_source_insider... https://80x24.net/post/the-problem-with-amp/ https://80x24.net/post/the-problem-with-amp/ https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/01/09/amp-will-still-suck https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/01/09/amp-will-still-... https://danielmiessler.com/blog/google-amp-not-good-thing/ https://danielmiessler.com/blog/google-amp-not-good-thing/ https://www.google.com/search?q=amp+sucks&num=100 https://www.google.com/search?q=amp+sucks&num=100

cylinder714 8y ago
Maciej Cegłowski: http://www.idlewords.com/amp_static.html http://www.idlewords.com/amp_static.html

pknight 8y ago

Excessive quotes or italics detracts from the readability of your comment. > Yes, AMP was developed/sponsored by Google, but that does not make it "bad" Having Google shape the web is what is definitely bad. > For the vast majority of Publishers who already use Google Analytics including the AMP JS on the page is not a concern. (you are already sending all your usage data to Google...) Every site owner gets to decide what analytics package they use without it impeding their results in the search engines. The defaults that websites adopt should not be set in favour of one corporation. Having Google monopolise every space is bad for the web.

nelsonic 8y ago
@pknight I agree with you 100%. No corporation should have a monopoly on any aspect of the web. Should there be a truly corporation/platform-agnostic alternative to AMP? Yes! Definitely. Is that happening right now? Sadly not. It appears to take a "big co" to drive it forward. I am merely offering the perspective of the publisher who wants their content to be discovered. Google is (still) the "starting point" for many people. Many people have Google as their default search engine and the ubiquity of Google Chrome on both Desktop and Mobile means that is where people enter their "thoughts" when searching for anything ... If a publisher wants their blog/news/site to be "found", AMP is a really good option because it's "supported" by Google. Rendering AMP-compliant pages does not mean the publisher cannot have an alternative template/view that is even more "optimised" (i.e. without AMP JS) OR a view with ads from a different network or no ads at all. I'm not saying AMP a "good" or "bad" thing, just that it's a tool at the disposal of content publishers which can get them better "discoverability" in Google. Which for most people is a major benefit. Bottom line is: for established publishers who want their content to be "accelerated" on Mobile devices (and thus show up higher in the Google SERPs because Google openly prioritises faster pages/content) and new content producers who want to be "found", AMP is a good way for people who already use Google to discover them. Further reading for people considering AMP: https://moz.com/blog/amp-digital-marketing-2018 https://moz.com/blog/amp-digital-marketing-2018