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Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

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Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#161

Post by angry-hacker »

fixermark wrote: post #146
tracker1 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could easily heavily penalize any website delivering over 1mb of html + css + js, and have a bonus for being under 500/100/50kb total as part of their pagerank. That would be a huge driver... if nobody with over 1mb of html+css+js would be in the top 5 results, period.

What you've described would be a pretty game-able SEO algorithm.

So is every Google's guideline, yet most fail to game them. Google is smart. And good people will follow the guidelines instead of testing if something can be gamed, majority of industry is afraid of Google and its guidelines.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#162

Post by jzl »

The most annoying thing about AMP is that there is no way to get the original link easily. I don't necessarily mind reading the AMP version, but if I bookmark or share the link I want to be able to use the original and not Google's copy. Whose to say the AMP link will work as long as the original copy? And what if I explicitly want to use the result as an entryway into the site because I might be looking for other similar articles on the site or need other aspects of the full site experience? AMP seems like it could be maybe be a good thing, but the lack of a method to get a link to the original article exposes AMP, IMO, as the traffic and power grab that it really is.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#163

Post by angry-hacker »

fixermark wrote: post #143
liquidise wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the disagreements with AMP entirely. Google, with less effort, could have released a series of requirements for a page to be considered "AMP"ed: (examples) 0 blocking script requests, less than 500KB in total page load, page loads in under 1s, etc. Once your pages meet these requirements, they gain the AMP moniker. Instead, google built an entirely new presentation method itself. This engineer…

What you're describing has already been done. https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/ https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/ It didn't work. And given that the solution to Google "stealing" a site's AMP traffic is that site just stops supporting AMP, the "stealing" argument doesn't hold a lot of water. If I'm a small publisher, Google caches taking page hits on popular topics instead of my…

It didn't work because Google didn't create it as a strong signal. Make it matter and the majority of sites will change the next time. One Tweet from Matt Cutts and everyone's already re-doing sites for SEO purposes. Set clear guidelines and rest will follow. But Google wants to build its own news portal to compete with FB.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#164

Post by liquidise »

fixermark wrote: post #143
liquidise wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the disagreements with AMP entirely. Google, with less effort, could have released a series of requirements for a page to be considered "AMP"ed: (examples) 0 blocking script requests, less than 500KB in total page load, page loads in under 1s, etc. Once your pages meet these requirements, they gain the AMP moniker. Instead, google built an entirely new presentation method itself. This engineer…

What you're describing has already been done. https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/ https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/ It didn't work. And given that the solution to Google "stealing" a site's AMP traffic is that site just stops supporting AMP, the "stealing" argument doesn't hold a lot of water. If I'm a small publisher, Google caches taking page hits on popular topics instead of my…

A few disagreements with your analysis: AMP was given a wide spread announcement that generated an unusual amount of press. It was impossible to ignore. If page speed was such an important (and viable) solution, google could simply have announced they would more heavily favor sites that performed well.

Also, not supporting AMP is not a casual decision for some companies. My blog doesn't earn me revenue so i can happily tell google to pound sand before i support AMP. Can revenue-driven publishers due the same and sacrifice their SEO like that? I doubt it.

> Google caches taking page hits on popular topics instead of my server is a boon, not a hindrance

I simply cannot disagree with this more. Your most popular posts/topics are what generally drive the viewership and discovery of your site. I want those viewers. With AMP, they are looking at google, with a google URL, and a nice big "X" to close the window, never to see my site again. I don't see how this can be defensed at all. It is the exact opposite of what you are aiming for as a publisher, big or small.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#165

Post by djeikyb »

fixermark wrote: post #140
fragmede wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a valid point about page bloat, but its a distraction and a poor excuse for hijacking the entire web. My hate for AMP is because Google is using its might to break a fundamental contract for how the web works - the URL bar shows what site you're on, and content is coming from that domain. No other site has gotten away with this. The last time I can recall someone attempting something similar was Digg (rememb…

Why do you need to get to the same article on www.nbcnews.com ?

So I can share a real link. Remove google's huge amp toolbar. Scroll normally. Have a correctly rendered page. Because I want content from the source, not google.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#166

Post by fixermark »

liquidise wrote: post #164
fixermark wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing has already been done. https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/ https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/ It didn't work. And given that the solution to Google "stealing" a site's AMP traffic is that site just stops supporting AMP, the "stealing" argument doesn't hold a lot of water. If I'm a small publisher, Google caches taking page hits on popular topics instead of my…

A few disagreements with your analysis: AMP was given a wide spread announcement that generated an unusual amount of press. It was impossible to ignore. If page speed was such an important (and viable) solution, google could simply have announced they would more heavily favor sites that performed well. Also, not supporting AMP is not a casual decision for some companies. My blog doesn't earn me revenue so i can happi…

What stops you from providing links to additional content on your site on the amp-enabled page?

You seem to be assuming there's a category of user who is casual enough that they'll page away after reading the one amp story, yet if they'd been on your content-originating site instead, they'd be like "Oh, now that I've read that, I should go click these links and read other things from this source!"

I'm not sure why we think those users exist.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#167

Post by fixermark »

djeikyb wrote: post #165
fixermark wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need to get to the same article on www.nbcnews.com ?

So I can share a real link. Remove google's huge amp toolbar. Scroll normally. Have a correctly rendered page. Because I want content from the source, not google.

That seems an arbitrary desire based on an older-model of web surfing that still gets around a site by physically selecting and deleting pieces of the URL.

Lots of users don't operate that way. Caring about the URL is increasingly going in the direction of caring about the IP address.

I can share the link by tapping the "Share" option on the dropdown menu in my phone's browser. Works great.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#168

Post by detaro »

stuckagain wrote: post #92
fragmede wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a valid point about page bloat, but its a distraction and a poor excuse for hijacking the entire web. My hate for AMP is because Google is using its might to break a fundamental contract for how the web works - the URL bar shows what site you're on, and content is coming from that domain. No other site has gotten away with this. The last time I can recall someone attempting something similar was Digg (rememb…

You don't seem to understand the technology or the argument you made. The URL bar says google.com because google.com is serving the content you are reading. In other words, it exactly honors the "fundamental contract" you find so important. I also dispute your qualitative opinion that nbcnews.com works "just fine". If I load their top story currently from AMP it loads in about half a second. If I visit it from nbcnew…

And what happens if you load the AMP version from their server, which IMHO is the fairer comparison when discussing complaints about the Google cache of it? AMP as a "document standard" on top of HTML would IMHO already solve a lot.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#169

Post by burai »

We used to have RSS, a standard that allowed to read articles easily and efficiently, and it died with the help of google when it killed google reader. And now they have created this new "standard" in their own garden and expect people to go and play it in exchange of better positioning. I think I'll take the suggestion I've seen here and I'll use duckduckgo

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#170

Post by macNchz »

monochromatic wrote: post #156
macNchz wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched my default search engine on my phone from Google to DuckDuckGo because I got sick of the growing number AMP links, which I also don't like for all the same reasons you listed. They are a bad reminder of the early days of the mobile internet when lots of websites would automatically redirect you to a terrible 'mobile version'. I certainly want better mobile sites, but not in the form of these AMP pages.

AMP annoys my too, but it hadn't occurred to me to switch to DuckDuckGo. Good idea, just made the change.

It's definitely not perfect but I've found DuckDuckGo to work reasonably well for the kind of quick searches I tend to do from my phone. Plus if it's giving you bad results you can tack on !g to the query and it'll give you the google results instead.
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