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Yes! You're absolutely right that page size, coupled with something like time-to-render metrics, could do that! Of course, there might be a wrinkle or two. How
by Kalium 7y ago
Yes! You're absolutely right that page size, coupled with something like time-to-render metrics, could do that!
Of course, there might be a wrinkle or two. How do you propose to evaluate the size of a page when large amounts of something like a newspaper article is loaded by reference, dynamic, and depends on third parties making independent run-time decisions? How can you know a page's size won't vary 50% minute-to-minute in a world like ours? And how can you meaningfully measure load time in such a context?
You're absolutely right. Page size and speed could absolutely be better ways to do this! It's just maybe possible that there could be some minor obstacles to doing so.
- saagarjha 7y ago> How do you propose to evaluate the size of a page when large amounts of something like a newspaper article is loaded by reference, dynamic, and depends on third parties making independent run-time decisions? You downrank them immediately because that's slow.
- Kalium 7y agoGreat idea! Of course, there might be an issue here because the amount of things that work that way is huge. So now you have a scenario where everyone is angry at Google for trying to dictate how they can build web pages and writing angry digital polemics about how this is an unreasonable standard and abuse of power. Nobody actually wants to re-implement massive chunks of how their website works, so everyone will resent this incredibly artificial imposition. Which is to say it's a wonderfully straightforward answer, but perhaps not better than AMP in practice.
- saagarjha 7y ago> everyone is angry at Google for trying to dictate how they can build web pages But we're already doing that because Google downranks results that don't use AMP. We're generally OK with Google downranking sites on actual metrics (such as HTTPS) but not when they're pushing their "solution" that clearly has a number of issues with conflict of interest.
- Kalium 7y agoAre you saying you'd be completely fine with the above scenario, where Google downranks each webpage based on the number of external assets it loads and the amount of dynamic content it has? Instead of using AMP? Personally, I prefer AMP for security reasons. It's tightly restrictive and does a lot to limit the available space to mount attacks aimed at browsers. But I understand that's far down most people's lists, and tends to fall under the same sentiment as "devs should just write fast websites".
- saagarjha 7y agoYes, because I think that is a pretty accurate way to measure how much I would hate to go to that page, and it doesn't require AMP to work.
- Kalium 7y agoI suspect you may be an outlier, as most people seem to deeply resent the strong incentives to change how they author web pages. Shaping them slightly differently strikes me as unlikely to generate a dramatically different reaction.
- tedunangst 7y agoRewriting a page to use amp is not shaping it slightly differently.
- Kalium 7y agoYou're absolutely correct. Please accept my apologies for being uncolear. I was speaking specificially and narrowly of strong incentives to build weg pages differently being shaped slightly differently under a hypothetical regime. Again, please accept my apologies for my failure to communicate my point clearly.