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I think there needs to be a real alternate solution from Google for longer term change. (if Google wants to stay relevant) Can they just penalize slow/large fi

I think there needs to be a real alternate solution from Google for longer term change. (if Google wants to stay relevant) Can they just penalize slow/large file size sites in their index? This seems like the underlying goal behind AMP and Chrome's Lighthouse (site audit tool) any way. This would make a lot of sites fast in the next couple months. But maybe Google doesn't really want that?

chrisan 7y ago
Page speed is already a penalty factor in ranking. Think they introduced this last year edit: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/01/using-page-speed-in-mobile-search.html https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/01/using-page-speed-i...
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  But what does Google say about AMP affecting your ranking? If they don't explicitly state both sides, then we are left to guess. And I would say (considering how Google search looks on mobile in Chrome) that AMP is a far higher effect on rank than page speed. So what is the motivation to make your page speed faster when you can just have an AMP page and then a super fat page for everything else?
thejohnconway 7y ago
> Can they just penalize slow/large file size sites in their index? Well, that would be bad for the independent web, wouldn't it? I mean, you'd be penalising sites with large amounts of content, that aren't on a CDN. Large images or videos, for example, might be the entire point of the page in the first place. I don't want to be directed to to a webpage about an artist (for example) that has the crappiest, smallest and fastest loading images, I want the one with the best images.
- whb07 7y ago
  well no, not really? Perhaps you could imagine a world where it default loads a smaller file and right underneath there is a link to a larger file? This used to be a more common thing...
  - sergiotapia 7y ago
    This is _literally_ what people do to game the paint speed of websites for Chrome Lighthouse tests. They render a <p>Loading</p> so it gets a paint score of 100, then when their behemoth js app finishes loading+parsing it removes this dom element.
    - rstupek 7y ago
      This is literally every WIX site on the web. 100% javascript rendered site.
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  Html <img> and <picture> elements already have the ability to serve larger or smaller images (srcset) based on your browser's perception of your network performance. I agree with the other comment here replying to you. In the olden days people had to explicitly link to larger content. Isn't that was AMP does anyway?
- URSpider94 7y ago
  The reason Google has penalties for page weight and loading time is that they have extensive user research on customer behavior related to loading time. If a flat page studded with a few dozen giant PNG’s takes a minute to load, most people are going to click the back button. It’s worth spending some time optimizing your landing page so that it loads fast and renders cleanly on mobile, if you want people to see your content. That doesn’t mean it has to use JS, or AMP.
  - dmitriid 7y ago
    > The reason Google has penalties for page weight and loading time is that they have extensive user research on customer behavior related to loading time. If a flat page studded with a few dozen giant PNG’s takes a minute to load, most people are going to click the back button. Why is then basically every single page created by Google is a bloated monstrosity with multi-megabyte Pangs routinely embedded in them and loading megabytes of shitty JS?
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  That's a very edge case - its more that front end design and developers need to get their act together and design and build for speed! Don't use complex but nice images designed for print on the web and not just copypasta god knows what js library.
  - thejohnconway 7y ago
    Are you saying good, clear pictures are an edge case? I just can't agree, as I find them hugely relevant to a large number of subjects. I don't think images are the problem, megabytes of third-party javascript is.
- Andrex 7y ago
  Crawlers are smart enough to measure various types of slowness; images/video are non-blocking so although they're bandwidth-heavy, adding a bunch to your site is probably less "damaging" than a slow initial server response or first paint. > I don't want to be directed to to a webpage about an artist (for example) that has the crappiest, smallest and fastest loading images, I want the one with the best images. There are several technologies available for progressively-enhanced images, and Chrome is experimenting with lazy-loading all images[1]. This argument does not exist in practice. [1] https://web.dev/native-lazy-loading/ https://web.dev/native-lazy-loading/
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > Well, that would be bad for the independent web, wouldn't it? Google already effectively omits most of the independent web anyway. It strongly favors the large commercial websites instead.
windsurfer 7y ago
AMP's current goals are stated to make pages load faster, but it's obvious that the goal is only a start. It's essentially the second part of Microsoft's old "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish" where Google is wanting to extend the third party advertising and content that exists on the web so that they may extinguish it. Google's mission is to "organize the world's information". How can you better organize the world's information when other companies control it? Nothing better than taking control of that information directly. Now you can organize and reformat it to your own wishes. Nothing evil about that, mind you, but it does make you think about their next steps.
donohoe 7y ago
Yes - they do this. Slow web pages is a big signal (out of many) in SEO.
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  AMP demotivates page speed performance improvements though. (ie, AMP > page speed for ranking)
throwaway13337 7y ago
The reason that they do not just penalize slow loading sites in a big way is because those are the sites that they directly profit on. Most page weight seems to come from tracking and ads. Google IS the most popular tracking and ad provider on the web. If google penalized slow loading very much, they'd be hurting their own revenue and data collection. It's a conflict of interest. AMP allows these big, ad-driven, heavy-weight sites to still take all the top spots on the web. Meanwhile terrific content is buried because it's failure to implement AMP. Google's self-interested ranking of sites is shaping the web very negatively - towards more tracking and more ads.
- ctack 7y ago
  You’re correct. When making a site you have to make a trade off between “Advert supported” and “lightweight”. Pretty damn sneaky of them!
wmf 7y ago
W3C is working on neutral/non-locked-in replacements for AMP like feature policies and Web Packaging but standards take years to deploy.

chrisan 7y ago

Page speed is already a penalty factor in ranking. Think they introduced this last year edit: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/01/using-page-speed-in-mobile-search.html https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/01/using-page-speed-i...

RobertRoberts 7y ago
But what does Google say about AMP affecting your ranking? If they don't explicitly state both sides, then we are left to guess. And I would say (considering how Google search looks on mobile in Chrome) that AMP is a far higher effect on rank than page speed. So what is the motivation to make your page speed faster when you can just have an AMP page and then a super fat page for everything else?

thejohnconway 7y ago

> Can they just penalize slow/large file size sites in their index? Well, that would be bad for the independent web, wouldn't it? I mean, you'd be penalising sites with large amounts of content, that aren't on a CDN. Large images or videos, for example, might be the entire point of the page in the first place. I don't want to be directed to to a webpage about an artist (for example) that has the crappiest, smallest and fastest loading images, I want the one with the best images.

whb07 7y ago
well no, not really? Perhaps you could imagine a world where it default loads a smaller file and right underneath there is a link to a larger file? This used to be a more common thing...
- sergiotapia 7y ago
  This is _literally_ what people do to game the paint speed of websites for Chrome Lighthouse tests. They render a <p>Loading</p> so it gets a paint score of 100, then when their behemoth js app finishes loading+parsing it removes this dom element.
  - rstupek 7y ago
    This is literally every WIX site on the web. 100% javascript rendered site.
RobertRoberts 7y ago
Html <img> and <picture> elements already have the ability to serve larger or smaller images (srcset) based on your browser's perception of your network performance. I agree with the other comment here replying to you. In the olden days people had to explicitly link to larger content. Isn't that was AMP does anyway?
URSpider94 7y ago
The reason Google has penalties for page weight and loading time is that they have extensive user research on customer behavior related to loading time. If a flat page studded with a few dozen giant PNG’s takes a minute to load, most people are going to click the back button. It’s worth spending some time optimizing your landing page so that it loads fast and renders cleanly on mobile, if you want people to see your content. That doesn’t mean it has to use JS, or AMP.
- dmitriid 7y ago
  > The reason Google has penalties for page weight and loading time is that they have extensive user research on customer behavior related to loading time. If a flat page studded with a few dozen giant PNG’s takes a minute to load, most people are going to click the back button. Why is then basically every single page created by Google is a bloated monstrosity with multi-megabyte Pangs routinely embedded in them and loading megabytes of shitty JS?
C1sc0cat 7y ago
That's a very edge case - its more that front end design and developers need to get their act together and design and build for speed! Don't use complex but nice images designed for print on the web and not just copypasta god knows what js library.
- thejohnconway 7y ago
  Are you saying good, clear pictures are an edge case? I just can't agree, as I find them hugely relevant to a large number of subjects. I don't think images are the problem, megabytes of third-party javascript is.
Andrex 7y ago
Crawlers are smart enough to measure various types of slowness; images/video are non-blocking so although they're bandwidth-heavy, adding a bunch to your site is probably less "damaging" than a slow initial server response or first paint. > I don't want to be directed to to a webpage about an artist (for example) that has the crappiest, smallest and fastest loading images, I want the one with the best images. There are several technologies available for progressively-enhanced images, and Chrome is experimenting with lazy-loading all images[1]. This argument does not exist in practice. [1] https://web.dev/native-lazy-loading/ https://web.dev/native-lazy-loading/
JohnFen 7y ago
> Well, that would be bad for the independent web, wouldn't it? Google already effectively omits most of the independent web anyway. It strongly favors the large commercial websites instead.

windsurfer 7y ago

AMP's current goals are stated to make pages load faster, but it's obvious that the goal is only a start. It's essentially the second part of Microsoft's old "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish" where Google is wanting to extend the third party advertising and content that exists on the web so that they may extinguish it. Google's mission is to "organize the world's information". How can you better organize the world's information when other companies control it? Nothing better than taking control of that information directly. Now you can organize and reformat it to your own wishes. Nothing evil about that, mind you, but it does make you think about their next steps.

donohoe 7y ago

Yes - they do this. Slow web pages is a big signal (out of many) in SEO.

RobertRoberts 7y ago
AMP demotivates page speed performance improvements though. (ie, AMP > page speed for ranking)

throwaway13337 7y ago

The reason that they do not just penalize slow loading sites in a big way is because those are the sites that they directly profit on. Most page weight seems to come from tracking and ads. Google IS the most popular tracking and ad provider on the web. If google penalized slow loading very much, they'd be hurting their own revenue and data collection. It's a conflict of interest. AMP allows these big, ad-driven, heavy-weight sites to still take all the top spots on the web. Meanwhile terrific content is buried because it's failure to implement AMP. Google's self-interested ranking of sites is shaping the web very negatively - towards more tracking and more ads.

ctack 7y ago
You’re correct. When making a site you have to make a trade off between “Advert supported” and “lightweight”. Pretty damn sneaky of them!

wmf 7y ago

W3C is working on neutral/non-locked-in replacements for AMP like feature policies and Web Packaging but standards take years to deploy.