4 ms·

Thumbs down to anyone enabling AMP’s success. Google should be measuring page speed only, it’s none of their business what methods you used to achieve that spe

Thumbs down to anyone enabling AMP’s success. Google should be measuring page speed only, it’s none of their business what methods you used to achieve that speed.

AlexandrB 8y ago
This is exactly right. Google's behavior with AMP often seems orthogonal to their stated goals.
comex 8y ago
You can improve your network request speed, but you can’t bring the time taken down to literally zero, i.e. the speed if your page was already prefetched while the user was looking at search results. Yet for privacy reasons, prefetched results had to be served from a cache, yet the Web had no way for Google to cache a page without literally rehosting it on its own domain – which in turn required restrictions on JavaScript, to avoid random people’s code being able to execute in the context of www.google.com. That explains most of AMP. On the other hand, AMP Real URL is based on Signed HTTP Exchanges, which allow one site to send a cached copy of someone else’s site, in a much more straightforward manner. In theory, Google could now drop the bulk of what’s now known as “AMP” and cache arbitrary pages that indicate their willingness to be cached. That they’re instead integrating this with AMP suggests they may not drop it, which would be unfortunate. On the other hand, since Signed HTTP Exchanges will remain a Chrome-only feature for the foreseeable future, it’s arguably a bit early to expect Google to make that kind of commitment.
- snek 8y ago
  If Google didn't penalize sites that don't use AMP, and instead just measured response, paint, etc times and such, I would agree with you.
- AlexandrB 8y ago
  > You can improve your network request speed, but you can’t bring the time taken down to literally zero, i.e. the speed if your page was already prefetched while the user was looking at search results. Maybe I'm just old, but I don't understand why this is a worthwhile goal. Even with its bloat the internet today is much, much faster than it was 15 years ago and I'm quite happy to wait a few seconds for a page to load. In addition, doesn't pre-fetching every result just waste bandwidth on mobile?
  - SquareWheel 8y ago
    I can't imagine they prefetch every result. Just the first one.
  - comex 8y ago
    Well, for one thing, internet speed depends on the quality of your connection, which in the case of mobile networks varies wildly. But personally, I’m a sucker for low latency across all of tech (and gaming as well). That’s why I use Safari instead of Chrome, Terminal.app instead of iTerm, C++ instead of Rust sometimes (compile times), and basically anything else instead of Java (startup time), among other preferences. I even prefer reading ebooks on normal screens rather than e-ink displays, simply because I don’t want to wait between pressing “next page” and seeing the page show up. Not surprisingly, then, I really appreciate website snappiness in general, including links that load instantly due to prefetching. I can’t say I appreciate AMP as it exists today, because the quick load comes with a host of UX issues, but I have hope for the future. Take that perspective how you will. I think I’m a bit of an outlier in just how much latency bothers me, but pretty much everyone consciously or subconsciously appreciates when it goes down. Probably including you: the current speed might seem “fast enough” now, but if faster loading becomes the norm and the other issues are dealt with, I bet you’d have a hard time going back.
sjwright 8y ago
This. Exactly this. If Google actually cared about performance, that is what they would have done.
ehsankia 8y ago
Is there any proof that the score is impacted by AMP-ness, and not purely due to speed?

Thumbs down to anyone enabling AMP’s success. Google should be measuring page speed only, it’s none of their business what methods you used to achieve that speed.

AlexandrB 8y ago

This is exactly right. Google's behavior with AMP often seems orthogonal to their stated goals.

comex 8y ago

You can improve your network request speed, but you can’t bring the time taken down to literally zero, i.e. the speed if your page was already prefetched while the user was looking at search results. Yet for privacy reasons, prefetched results had to be served from a cache, yet the Web had no way for Google to cache a page without literally rehosting it on its own domain – which in turn required restrictions on JavaScript, to avoid random people’s code being able to execute in the context of www.google.com. That explains most of AMP. On the other hand, AMP Real URL is based on Signed HTTP Exchanges, which allow one site to send a cached copy of someone else’s site, in a much more straightforward manner. In theory, Google could now drop the bulk of what’s now known as “AMP” and cache arbitrary pages that indicate their willingness to be cached. That they’re instead integrating this with AMP suggests they may not drop it, which would be unfortunate. On the other hand, since Signed HTTP Exchanges will remain a Chrome-only feature for the foreseeable future, it’s arguably a bit early to expect Google to make that kind of commitment.

snek 8y ago
If Google didn't penalize sites that don't use AMP, and instead just measured response, paint, etc times and such, I would agree with you.
AlexandrB 8y ago
> You can improve your network request speed, but you can’t bring the time taken down to literally zero, i.e. the speed if your page was already prefetched while the user was looking at search results. Maybe I'm just old, but I don't understand why this is a worthwhile goal. Even with its bloat the internet today is much, much faster than it was 15 years ago and I'm quite happy to wait a few seconds for a page to load. In addition, doesn't pre-fetching every result just waste bandwidth on mobile?
- SquareWheel 8y ago
  I can't imagine they prefetch every result. Just the first one.
- comex 8y ago
  Well, for one thing, internet speed depends on the quality of your connection, which in the case of mobile networks varies wildly. But personally, I’m a sucker for low latency across all of tech (and gaming as well). That’s why I use Safari instead of Chrome, Terminal.app instead of iTerm, C++ instead of Rust sometimes (compile times), and basically anything else instead of Java (startup time), among other preferences. I even prefer reading ebooks on normal screens rather than e-ink displays, simply because I don’t want to wait between pressing “next page” and seeing the page show up. Not surprisingly, then, I really appreciate website snappiness in general, including links that load instantly due to prefetching. I can’t say I appreciate AMP as it exists today, because the quick load comes with a host of UX issues, but I have hope for the future. Take that perspective how you will. I think I’m a bit of an outlier in just how much latency bothers me, but pretty much everyone consciously or subconsciously appreciates when it goes down. Probably including you: the current speed might seem “fast enough” now, but if faster loading becomes the norm and the other issues are dealt with, I bet you’d have a hard time going back.

sjwright 8y ago

This. Exactly this. If Google actually cared about performance, that is what they would have done.

ehsankia 8y ago

Is there any proof that the score is impacted by AMP-ness, and not purely due to speed?