Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic
alexkras.com
Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic
1–10 of 261 posts
Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic
#2I can't wait 'till the author finds out that sometimes the browsers cache resources... These terrible browsers stealing his page impressions.
Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic
#3Well, considering that said traffic originated from Google, and that Google was under no obligation to send it to OP's page, it's a little more nuanced than "stealing". It just means they sent different behaving traffic than usual - traffic that only touches one article and returns to Google.
It might discourage webmasters from adopting AMP though, if they have the expectation to lead the visitor to the homepage or other articles.
Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic
#4Slightly off topic, but on my iPhone (7, 10.0.2), AMP pages from Google never render. I just get a blank screen: https://i.imgbox.com/8EkaRn8t.png
Has anyone else seen this?
Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic
#5Well, considering that said traffic originated from Google, and that Google was under no obligation to send it to OP's page, it's a little more nuanced than "stealing". It just means they sent different behaving traffic than usual - traffic that only touches one article and returns to Google. It might discourage webmasters from adopting AMP though, if they have the expectation to lead the visitor to the homepage or o…
But the user is expecting to go to the site. Agree w/ OP's concern.
Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic
#6Well, considering that said traffic originated from Google, and that Google was under no obligation to send it to OP's page, it's a little more nuanced than "stealing". It just means they sent different behaving traffic than usual - traffic that only touches one article and returns to Google. It might discourage webmasters from adopting AMP though, if they have the expectation to lead the visitor to the homepage or o…
I really love the speed of AMP pages, but I don't like the fact that the server request is proxied through Google.
This is akin to an ISP injecting their own little optimization toolbar into pages rendered to the user, except that cert pinning isn't even an option here, since Google is doing the content re-writing at the app tier. They even manage to keep the browser security icon green, creating the at-a-glance perception that the data provenance can be trusted!
If Google edge caching really is critical, then I'd rather see an architecture in which the AMP content is signed by the originating site, and the signature is looked up and validated client-side. This might incur a bit more of a performance hit for sites that are being overwhelmed, but really, that's as it should be -- as an end user, it's surprising that my AMP results are essentially a Google cache. And it would seem that Google goes to good lengths to make the look-and-feel appear browser-like, instead of calling out the cached nature of the response.
Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic
#7Hm. The x button he mentions is only visible if you got to the page from Google search. If you follow the direct link to the amp page then the header just mentions his original URL as the browser (mobile safari). I would say that such behaviour is quite consistent with mobile so... whatever.
Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic
#8The whole idea of AMP seems like it's really the wrong way to solve the problem. If you remove all the third party JavaScript, fonts, large images and "like" buttons you'll have effectively the same. I guess it already messes up ads and analytics (although I'd assume Google's services still work), so what's the problem?
Kind of related: I recently switched my blog from Wordpress to Hugo. I found a minimal theme, but the amount of junk it was loading was shocking. I created a stripped down version if anyone is interested: https://github.com/lucaspiller/hugo-privacy-cactus-theme
Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic
#9The whole idea of AMP seems like it's really the wrong way to solve the problem. If you remove all the third party JavaScript, fonts, large images and "like" buttons you'll have effectively the same. I guess it already messes up ads and analytics (although I'd assume Google's services still work), so what's the problem? Kind of related: I recently switched my blog from Wordpress to Hugo. I found a minimal theme, but…
I think you are missing one point though - Having that AMP message with the lightning symbol next to your search result in the rich snippet as well as coming up as a result in the carousel at the top of the search results (search for some news terms and you will see what I am talking about) increases organic search traffic as well as CTR. Almost all of the media companies are doing it for that reason and actually making pages fast.
Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic
#10Well, considering that said traffic originated from Google, and that Google was under no obligation to send it to OP's page, it's a little more nuanced than "stealing". It just means they sent different behaving traffic than usual - traffic that only touches one article and returns to Google. It might discourage webmasters from adopting AMP though, if they have the expectation to lead the visitor to the homepage or o…
Sure Google has no legal obligation to send the traffic to the site, but it is still sort of dishonest. Google convices people to install AMP under the premise that it will help them. Instead, it just allows Google to monetize other people's content, at the expense of the creator.
It's hypocrital to bill AMP as an improved mobile experience, while sticking a big button at the top. Also hypocritical to penalize sites for scraped, dublicate content, while doing the same themselves.