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Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic

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Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic

#21

Post by Svenskunganka »

what_ever wrote: post #9
lucaspiller wrote: post #8

The 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 mak…

You have a good point, but how Google approaches this problem is wrong in my opinion. Why can't they just rank the page by the amount of junk it has in the first place, instead of actively looking for an AMP-optimized page?

If they were doing that, the media companies (and any other site which isn't in the deep web) would be working towards making their content minimal at the core, not branching off with an "optimized" version of the page. This would make the browsing experience better for all devices, not just mobile users.

Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic

#22

Post by gkoberger »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #16
Animats wrote: post #11

It's not your site any more. You're just a free content provider to Google now.

When I heard about AMP, I didn't get warm fuzzies. I didn't exactly know how or why, but something told me that the main benefactor with this technology was Google, not the user, and certainly not the content provider. I can make pages faster without AMP by stripping the needless bloat and using a proper CDN. Why do I need this tech again, besides the artificial goad of page rank?

To be fair, as a user... I absolutely love AMP.

(That being said, I dislike it as a content provider and as someone worried Google has too much power)

Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic

#25

Post by raverbashing »

buro9 wrote: post #19
elsewhen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you imagine if every site that linked to yours had a bar at the top of your page that said "back to facebook" or "back to wikipedia"? mobile web users know how to use the back button but google is taking up your screen real-estate to drive traffic back to google. this reminds me of sites in the early web that used to link out to sites and frame them with a banner at the top. websites countered this with frame-bre…

> can you imagine if every site that linked to yours had a bar at the top of your page that said "back to facebook" or "back to wikipedia"? I saw a site do this yesterday. It was so noticeable because I only permit same-origin JavaScript and the whole site broke (most actually work). Then I realised there is an intermediary providing this service: http://linkis.com/ It is the worst of all things.

Linkis is twitter cancer

http://www.adrianjock.com/remove-linkis-frames-twitter/

You can also look at the source from an linkis infected link to find the original url

Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic

#26

Post by dingo_bat »

gkoberger wrote: post #22
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I heard about AMP, I didn't get warm fuzzies. I didn't exactly know how or why, but something told me that the main benefactor with this technology was Google, not the user, and certainly not the content provider. I can make pages faster without AMP by stripping the needless bloat and using a proper CDN. Why do I need this tech again, besides the artificial goad of page rank?

To be fair, as a user... I absolutely love AMP. (That being said, I dislike it as a content provider and as someone worried Google has too much power)

That's your experience. In my experience, AMP pages are horrible and I avoid clicking on those.

Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic

#28

Post by Ph0X »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #16
Animats wrote: post #11

It's not your site any more. You're just a free content provider to Google now.

When I heard about AMP, I didn't get warm fuzzies. I didn't exactly know how or why, but something told me that the main benefactor with this technology was Google, not the user, and certainly not the content provider. I can make pages faster without AMP by stripping the needless bloat and using a proper CDN. Why do I need this tech again, besides the artificial goad of page rank?

If you're willing to put in all the work to do it yourself, and also pay for CDN (though it probably won't be as good as Google's), then feel free to do it.

But yeah, nothing's free. They give you this great technology, free access to their world-wide CDN, and better organic search results, at the cost of having the X button going back to search.

Though I have no idea how the author things that the "X" button should go back to the home page honestly... You open an article, you close the article. If you want to go to the homepage, you click the top banner with the logo.

Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic

#29

Post by mSparks »

niftich wrote: post #15
Animats wrote: post #11

It's not your site any more. You're just a free content provider to Google now.

The author is regretfully realizing that in this day and age when so much of the discoverability of the web is dominated by Google, Facebook, and a handful other players, content is a commodity that these gatekeepers compete over for the privilege of serving as entry-points, and with it, getting analytics and ad network data. But on the plus side, it's a free CDN, if you're passionate about your content.

Actually realised last week I hardly use google search anymore. And cant remember the last time i saw - let alone clicked on an ad (clickbait excluded). Not that I've switched to another search provider as much as search isn't the entry point to the internet it once was (especially with no google on tor sites).

That techies like me dont rely on them any more and non techies all share stuff via facebook must be hurting their page and ad hits.

Makes me wonder if this is more a move of desperation on their part. Food for thought even if it is a little too forward thinking.

Re: Google May Be Stealing Mobile Traffic

#30

Post by Illniyar »

pmontra wrote: post #20

> Consider adding a link at the top of your AMP page, giving user an option to visit the original post Why should they want to read the post again? The only viable option is to have links to other posts on your site, or maybe a link to the comments. By the way, what's the purpose of the bar at the top? The back button of the browser already does that, even on mobile. About analytics: I don't know if those accesses do…

"By the way, what's the purpose of the bar at the top? The back button of the browser already does that, even on mobile."

It has a slide-out animation to it?

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