5 ms·

Why AMP exists? A website I consult in a popular sports niche and has a slow, broken, ad-infested main website grew its traffic 500% with AMP. On the main web

by franze 6y ago

Why AMP exists? A website I consult in a popular sports niche and has a slow, broken, ad-infested main website grew its traffic 500% with AMP. On the main website, it's still broken. On AMP it's... AMP. So Google thinks it's fast enough/good enough. On AMP we implemented a lot of annoying CTAs to go to the main website. ”Read Full Article here” ”Read more” ”Details at...” In the past this website would have needed to optimize its real website to gain this much visibility in the search engines. Now they just AMP, then they optimize their AMP to real-world-website CTR, and can continue to have a... sub ideal.... website. AMP is whitelisted cloaking for slow websites. And a burden on webmasters and developers. I always say AMP is the internet if germans (most AMP leads were at one point germans) would have invented it (I am Austrian, we always joke about Germans ): Efficient, mostly boring and long term innovation harmful. I am rooting for AMP to die. Sadly it will still be around for about 5 years until the ”what a great journey” blogpost.

adventured 6y ago
> Why AMP exists? So Google can push through a gatekeeping approach to further controlling online content. After you take hostages, then you decide what kind of ransom you want. It's how every monopoly tends to behave, they push outward leveraging their position and try to put as many defensive moats into place as they can. If speed was actually their concern, they happen to control a search monopoly that pretends to very much care about performance and speed. If any of that were really true, they can practically flip a switch and smash every slow site on the Web. Aggressively turn up the penalty on such terrible sites. In less than a year they'd all jump to and get in line, or they would die, banished from all search results (sorry, your site sucks so bad we're not even going to index that garbage). Google is happy to banish sites for political-ideological reasons based on the bias of their employees, but they can't be bothered for performance reasons? It reveals a lot as Google knows it would be easy to fix without AMP. Speed is not the primary agenda of AMP, control is; speed is an excellent cover story.
- echelon 6y ago
  > So Google can push through a gatekeeping approach to further controlling online content. After you take hostages, then you decide what kind of ransom you want. Just like Apple. Fuck all of these companies. The DOJ needs to split them at the seams. Edit: damn these downvotes. I typed out an essay as a response to someone asking about the Great Filter in another thread, and now HN is blocking me for posting due to getting so many downvotes. I hate the Apple users censoring everyone that disagrees with them or points out negative things about their company. It's a huge problem. The perfect analogy for Apple is the CCP. Developers have to behave exactly like Apple wants to distribute software, or they're toast. And Apple users rush to defend this. They're "protected" by big Papa Bear Apple. They don't see this as a reduction of freedoms or strong arming. They got what they wanted and they're fervent about it, and they don't see the bigger picture. Apple isn't even protecting people. They're protecting their market lead. Apple users mean shit to them. They'd let us repair and install on our own if otherwise. The brand goes to people's heads just like other luxury brands (BMW, Dior, Gucci, etc.) - it's a lifestyle that needs to be signaled and defended. Isn't it obvious that they're bad for the world? Liberty or death. When did we forget that? I really like Nintendo. I grew up with them. Zelda is the best thing ever. It's the Miyazaki of gaming. But you know what? They're fucking assholes to fans. They take down artistic endeavors that companies like Square Enix and Sega encourage. They're shutting down the vibrant Melee tournament scene. And for that, they've earned my scorn. You can like something your favorite company makes but also hate their actions. Apple isn't a loving mother. It's an enterprise and we're just users. They shouldn't have such power at their disposal. It's bad for all of us. The computing sector shouldn't be Apple's own private fiefdom. Exit since I still can't post responses: I'm taking this up with Lucy McBath (D-GA) instead. I hope that everyone else that sees the incredible harm Apple is doing takes an hour to write their legislators as well. Spell out the problem so they can understand it. Arguing with people online isn't as effective as getting the DOJ to address the problem.
  - abestic9 6y ago
    That's a terrible analogy. Apple offers products and services to customers who with to pay for them. The CCP controls a region. With respect to the rest of your shotgun-spray of a commend, a similar argument could be made against people who hate on a company with no real measure of substance.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mbirth 6y ago
But how would they increase loading speed on their main website to get a better ranking? Probably like many others: only load empty frames and pull in all actual content later. Which is similarly awful. With the difference that AMP can easily be parsed by e.g. screen readers.
- Griffinsauce 6y ago
  Get on the JAMstack babyyyy But seriously: why do you assume that improving their loading speed would only be possible with mediocre outcomes? The problem here isn't that it's impossible to create a fast website, it's really not all that hard. The problem is prioritizing that over quick short term wins and "sexier" work.
  - mbirth 6y ago
    To make a fast website is rather easy, if you alone decide about it. But now think of a company, where marketing wants a specific corporate design, controlling wants 20 trackers, finance wants ads, etc. - and everything needs to work with whatever CMS was implemented 10 years ago. Now try to make all that into a fast website.
rkagerer 6y ago
Bonafide German here. I don't think we could have achieved something so insidious.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- skavi 6y ago
  …
ehwhyreally 6y ago
Or you could have spent the time you did with amp improving their main site.
- d3nj4l 6y ago
  "improving" the website would've been against business goals. That's the point GP is making - you don't need to "improve" your website (by removing slow ads, for example), if you can just use AMP as a cloak and make people visit your website using CTAs on amp. Take Reddit: their amp page is basically an ad for their shitty mobile page.
bluthru 6y ago
TIL Austrians have a severe inferiority complex.

by franze 6y ago

adventured 6y ago

> Why AMP exists? So Google can push through a gatekeeping approach to further controlling online content. After you take hostages, then you decide what kind of ransom you want. It's how every monopoly tends to behave, they push outward leveraging their position and try to put as many defensive moats into place as they can. If speed was actually their concern, they happen to control a search monopoly that pretends to very much care about performance and speed. If any of that were really true, they can practically flip a switch and smash every slow site on the Web. Aggressively turn up the penalty on such terrible sites. In less than a year they'd all jump to and get in line, or they would die, banished from all search results (sorry, your site sucks so bad we're not even going to index that garbage). Google is happy to banish sites for political-ideological reasons based on the bias of their employees, but they can't be bothered for performance reasons? It reveals a lot as Google knows it would be easy to fix without AMP. Speed is not the primary agenda of AMP, control is; speed is an excellent cover story.

echelon 6y ago
> So Google can push through a gatekeeping approach to further controlling online content. After you take hostages, then you decide what kind of ransom you want. Just like Apple. Fuck all of these companies. The DOJ needs to split them at the seams. Edit: damn these downvotes. I typed out an essay as a response to someone asking about the Great Filter in another thread, and now HN is blocking me for posting due to getting so many downvotes. I hate the Apple users censoring everyone that disagrees with them or points out negative things about their company. It's a huge problem. The perfect analogy for Apple is the CCP. Developers have to behave exactly like Apple wants to distribute software, or they're toast. And Apple users rush to defend this. They're "protected" by big Papa Bear Apple. They don't see this as a reduction of freedoms or strong arming. They got what they wanted and they're fervent about it, and they don't see the bigger picture. Apple isn't even protecting people. They're protecting their market lead. Apple users mean shit to them. They'd let us repair and install on our own if otherwise. The brand goes to people's heads just like other luxury brands (BMW, Dior, Gucci, etc.) - it's a lifestyle that needs to be signaled and defended. Isn't it obvious that they're bad for the world? Liberty or death. When did we forget that? I really like Nintendo. I grew up with them. Zelda is the best thing ever. It's the Miyazaki of gaming. But you know what? They're fucking assholes to fans. They take down artistic endeavors that companies like Square Enix and Sega encourage. They're shutting down the vibrant Melee tournament scene. And for that, they've earned my scorn. You can like something your favorite company makes but also hate their actions. Apple isn't a loving mother. It's an enterprise and we're just users. They shouldn't have such power at their disposal. It's bad for all of us. The computing sector shouldn't be Apple's own private fiefdom. Exit since I still can't post responses: I'm taking this up with Lucy McBath (D-GA) instead. I hope that everyone else that sees the incredible harm Apple is doing takes an hour to write their legislators as well. Spell out the problem so they can understand it. Arguing with people online isn't as effective as getting the DOJ to address the problem.
- abestic9 6y ago
  That's a terrible analogy. Apple offers products and services to customers who with to pay for them. The CCP controls a region. With respect to the rest of your shotgun-spray of a commend, a similar argument could be made against people who hate on a company with no real measure of substance.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mbirth 6y ago

But how would they increase loading speed on their main website to get a better ranking? Probably like many others: only load empty frames and pull in all actual content later. Which is similarly awful. With the difference that AMP can easily be parsed by e.g. screen readers.

Griffinsauce 6y ago
Get on the JAMstack babyyyy But seriously: why do you assume that improving their loading speed would only be possible with mediocre outcomes? The problem here isn't that it's impossible to create a fast website, it's really not all that hard. The problem is prioritizing that over quick short term wins and "sexier" work.
- mbirth 6y ago
  To make a fast website is rather easy, if you alone decide about it. But now think of a company, where marketing wants a specific corporate design, controlling wants 20 trackers, finance wants ads, etc. - and everything needs to work with whatever CMS was implemented 10 years ago. Now try to make all that into a fast website.

rkagerer 6y ago

Bonafide German here. I don't think we could have achieved something so insidious.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
skavi 6y ago
…

ehwhyreally 6y ago

Or you could have spent the time you did with amp improving their main site.

d3nj4l 6y ago
"improving" the website would've been against business goals. That's the point GP is making - you don't need to "improve" your website (by removing slow ads, for example), if you can just use AMP as a cloak and make people visit your website using CTAs on amp. Take Reddit: their amp page is basically an ad for their shitty mobile page.

bluthru 6y ago

TIL Austrians have a severe inferiority complex.