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Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

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Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#41

Post by tmarthal »

cyrusshepard wrote: post #3

This is a good response and I appreciate Malte's effort to engage publishers, but it doesn't calm my nerves about the biggest publisher complaint about AMP: Google owns the chrome (top navigation) on all AMP pages. This makes it easy to navigate back to Google (why would you ever want to leave?) and other publishers in the AMP ecosystem, but much harder to navigate to the publisher that created the page in the first…

I wonder if AMP isn't just an open source/mobile friendly version of StumbleUpon. Not sure if anyone remembers those SU banners at the top of most blogs, trying to get more in-site clicks from deep linked articles.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#42

Post by Sephr »

andrewguenther wrote: post #37
Sephr wrote: post #34

As positive as the response sounds, it is an empty promise. > We’re looking at ways to make the source link more discoverable and will update once that is done. If Google was actually going to fix the issue, they would have said "we will make the close button direct users to the original site and will update once that is done" OR "we are changing the x (close) button to a ← (back) button". "x" means "close" and "←" m…

Am I in the minority in that I found the function of the "x" to be very clear? I don't know if it is fair to call it "nothing less than a dark pattern" without a bit more data.

Yeah, I toned down my response, since it's not intentionally a dark pattern.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#43

Post by nostromo »

FT_intern wrote: post #27
cyrusshepard wrote: post #3

This is a good response and I appreciate Malte's effort to engage publishers, but it doesn't calm my nerves about the biggest publisher complaint about AMP: Google owns the chrome (top navigation) on all AMP pages. This makes it easy to navigate back to Google (why would you ever want to leave?) and other publishers in the AMP ecosystem, but much harder to navigate to the publisher that created the page in the first…

To be fair, the user coming from a search engine is most likely to want to navigate back to Google than to stay on the page. It might not be benevolent but it is an improvement to the user experience of most people.

That's why we have back buttons, no?

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#44

Post by cramforce »

jasonhansel wrote: post #40

I don't see why Google needs to have its own cache for AMP pages. If a publisher has its own fast CDN, why not just let it serve the AMP pages from its own domain?

The pre-rendering is one feature that requires a trust relationship between the host (to only serve valid AMP) and the platform. Otherwise the page may e.g. use a lot of CPU while in the background.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#45

Post by wmf »

Sephr wrote: post #34

As positive as the response sounds, it is an empty promise. > We’re looking at ways to make the source link more discoverable and will update once that is done. If Google was actually going to fix the issue, they would have said "we will make the close button direct users to the original site and will update once that is done" OR "we are changing the x (close) button to a ← (back) button". "x" means "close" and "←" m…

I don't understand why AMP even has that close button. But taking the user to the original site would just appear to reload the page, only slower.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#46

Post by poxrud »

cramforce wrote: post #30
rahrahrah wrote: post #7

He avoids really hard addressing the only bit that matters > Guess what happens when the "close" button is clicked inside the AMP view? And the amount of disingenuous on this just rubs me the wrong way: > If you are not comfortable with traffic on your AMP pages, please do not publish AMP pages.

Happy to address the close button: You are on a search page, you go on layer deep by clicking. The close button goes back. I don't see what else it should do. Mind you that I do understand that a link to the origin server would be a good improvement (and I've stated that in the post). I'm not sure what you find disingenuous. AMP are just web pages saying "HEY I A AMP, please use treat me as AMP". You can publish the…

"You can publish the same bytes minus the "HEY I A AMP" and get the old behavior".

Yes but then you won't get the AMP icon next to your page when it comes up in the search results. Over time users will become conditioned to prefer clicking on AMP enabled links. With the icon you are basically categorizing the search results into "really fast sites" and "regular speed or slow sites", even though it is perfectly possible to achieve the same AMP speeds without using AMP.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#47

Post by callalex »

cramforce wrote: post #30
rahrahrah wrote: post #7

He avoids really hard addressing the only bit that matters > Guess what happens when the "close" button is clicked inside the AMP view? And the amount of disingenuous on this just rubs me the wrong way: > If you are not comfortable with traffic on your AMP pages, please do not publish AMP pages.

Happy to address the close button: You are on a search page, you go on layer deep by clicking. The close button goes back. I don't see what else it should do. Mind you that I do understand that a link to the origin server would be a good improvement (and I've stated that in the post). I'm not sure what you find disingenuous. AMP are just web pages saying "HEY I A AMP, please use treat me as AMP". You can publish the…

Would you agree that the completely standards compliant, well-understood-by-users back button already replicates that behavior perfectly? Why does the close button have to have a different icon for the exact same purpose, if not to deceive?

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#48

Post by quickben »

FT_intern wrote: post #27
cyrusshepard wrote: post #3

This is a good response and I appreciate Malte's effort to engage publishers, but it doesn't calm my nerves about the biggest publisher complaint about AMP: Google owns the chrome (top navigation) on all AMP pages. This makes it easy to navigate back to Google (why would you ever want to leave?) and other publishers in the AMP ecosystem, but much harder to navigate to the publisher that created the page in the first…

To be fair, the user coming from a search engine is most likely to want to navigate back to Google than to stay on the page. It might not be benevolent but it is an improvement to the user experience of most people.

Why? The whole purpose of a search engine is to bring you to the result site, not to search forever.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#49

Post by mthoms »

callalex wrote: post #47
cramforce wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy to address the close button: You are on a search page, you go on layer deep by clicking. The close button goes back. I don't see what else it should do. Mind you that I do understand that a link to the origin server would be a good improvement (and I've stated that in the post). I'm not sure what you find disingenuous. AMP are just web pages saying "HEY I A AMP, please use treat me as AMP". You can publish the…

Would you agree that the completely standards compliant, well-understood-by-users back button already replicates that behavior perfectly? Why does the close button have to have a different icon for the exact same purpose, if not to deceive?

Please address this question @cramforce.

Why are you introducing a new and totally unnecessary display element when the back button is built right in to the browser and everyone already knows how it works?

No matter how hard I try, I can't think of any good reason for this banner.

But hey, to the right of that X there sure is a lot of room for placing an adsense ad! What a strange co-incidence.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#50

Post by kbenson »

quickben wrote: post #48
FT_intern wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the user coming from a search engine is most likely to want to navigate back to Google than to stay on the page. It might not be benevolent but it is an improvement to the user experience of most people.

Why? The whole purpose of a search engine is to bring you to the result site, not to search forever.

Because not everyone finds a useful page given their query from the first result they check. I often check between 2-4 results for some queries before I find what I want.

Also, given that it's hiding during scrolling now (or soon, depending on your platform) and you'll supposedly soon have the ability to define your own AMP menu, I think it mostly should calm the GGP's nerves.

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