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Google AMP Is Not a Good Thing

danielmiessler.com

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Re: Google AMP Is Not a Good Thing

#31

Post by stonogo »

davewasthere wrote: post #16

Similar to Medium, AMP encourages fast page loads and no interstitials, pop-ups or other cancer that seems to infest the average site these days. Yes, it may be possible to fix it over time. But I see AMP and Medium as clean, lightweight platforms that developers/marketers want to emulate and users will start to demand. From a user experience, you definitely can't beat the speed of AMP delivered content. So it's a hi…

Nothing about Medium is lightweight. Consider this one-sentence article that results in a 1.2MB pageload:

https://medium.com/@mceglowski/chickenshit-minimalism-846fc1...

There are more examples and a broader examination available from idlewords:

http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm

Re: Google AMP Is Not a Good Thing

#32

Post by sjcsjc »

mynegation wrote: post #13

It got annoying enough for me to switch my search to bing.com everywhere, including Google's own browser. My two main complaints: 1. Once I am on AMP page, most of the time I want to click around the site and I cannot do that - feels like a cage. 2. URL obfuscates the site name and article title (not completely, but definitely adds visual noise)

Agree. I did exactly this a couple of days ago when trying to get the URL of a BBC news article. I had never used bing before that.

Re: Google AMP Is Not a Good Thing

#33

Post by xd1936 »

steffenweber wrote: post #6

Google should reward fast / jank-free websites instead of rewarding websites that use one particular technology (AMP). On SERPs, both the "flash" icon and the AMP carousel are AMP-exclusive which suggests that Google is abusing its market power.

They do. They reward sites that load fast. They also offer AMP as another way to speed sites up, which in turn makes them rise in rankings. But Google offers a large suite of tools to help web developers speed up their websites.

Re: Google AMP Is Not a Good Thing

#34

Post by mark242 »

interfacesketch wrote: post #20

Do we really need Instant Articles (Facebook) and AMP (Google) when we can accomplish fast loading pages with plain, uncomplicated HTML and CSS? I feel that many web developers don't realise that simple HTML and CSS is often all you need to make clear, fast loading pages. No complicated tricks or techniques required. You can make the page reasonably pleasant in appearance too. Think of the sites you often visit: news…

Okay but let's be realistic-- you are not a major publisher trying to make money off these pages. You can say "yes my page loads in 100k and 300ms until DOMContentLoaded" all you want, that doesn't change the fact that when you slap a couple of pieces of advertising on there, it's going to slow down.

To give you an idea-- the New York Times page without any advertising on it is 2MB and has a DOMContentLoaded event at 1.29s, approximately 1 second slower than your page. With advertising, it is 3.9MB and 1.82s.

When ad networks are able to run without almost 2MB of Javascript, then we can talk about how AMP isn't needed.

Re: Google AMP Is Not a Good Thing

#35

Post by judah »

CJefferson wrote: post #4

Out of interest, is there anyone who wants to defend the current Google AMP (not the concept of lighter webpages, but how google has gone about it?) I haven't found anyone yet personally.

Christian Heilmann (formerly of Mozilla, now Microsoft) recently interviewed[0] AMP developer Paul Bakaus. It was a fantastic interview, as Heilmann grilled Bakaus on some of the issues raised in this thread.

[0]: https://www.christianheilmann.com/2017/01/05/first-decoded-c...

Re: Google AMP Is Not a Good Thing

#36

Post by ksk »

ptasci67 wrote: post #2

I don't think this post really articulated any concrete reasons why AMP is good or bad. It just said it is.

I saw several.

1. Single point of failure/control 2. It's a retraction from the web's inherent uhhh 'webby' nature where you can link to any content. 3. Google wants to become a 'toll booth' on the internet where it inserts itself between users and content.

As an aside, I think people do sense a bit of hypocrisy from a lot of "benevolent" companies like Google. They're all open and standards-y when its about commoditizing a sector in which they don't have any direct financial interest. But they're fiercely closed and proprietary when it serves their interests.

Re: Google AMP Is Not a Good Thing

#37

Post by djrogers »

mark242 wrote: post #34
interfacesketch wrote: post #20

Do we really need Instant Articles (Facebook) and AMP (Google) when we can accomplish fast loading pages with plain, uncomplicated HTML and CSS? I feel that many web developers don't realise that simple HTML and CSS is often all you need to make clear, fast loading pages. No complicated tricks or techniques required. You can make the page reasonably pleasant in appearance too. Think of the sites you often visit: news…

Okay but let's be realistic-- you are not a major publisher trying to make money off these pages. You can say "yes my page loads in 100k and 300ms until DOMContentLoaded" all you want, that doesn't change the fact that when you slap a couple of pieces of advertising on there, it's going to slow down. To give you an idea-- the New York Times page without any advertising on it is 2MB and has a DOMContentLoaded event at…

> you are not a major publisher trying to make money off these pages.

Hate to break it to you, but major publishers aren't making any money of the AMP'd version of their pages - most of the monetization is stripped out, and readers aren't even actually on their site so they won't stay and click around.

Re: Google AMP Is Not a Good Thing

#38

Post by ocdtrekkie »

dccoolgai wrote: post #27

I remember when Google had a really awesome thing that provided great content experiences: It was called Google Reader. I wish they would take some of the energy they are using trying to force AMP down everyone's throats and just re-launch Reader.

And the beautiful thing is, RSS feeds load quickly with no scripts, embedded ads, or tracking, and isn't tied to any proprietary cloud service provider.

More and more I am convinced Google convinces everyone to move away from things just so they can "reinvent" them down the line in a more proprietary fashion.

Re: Google AMP Is Not a Good Thing

#40

Post by donohoe »

mark242 wrote: post #34
interfacesketch wrote: post #20

Do we really need Instant Articles (Facebook) and AMP (Google) when we can accomplish fast loading pages with plain, uncomplicated HTML and CSS? I feel that many web developers don't realise that simple HTML and CSS is often all you need to make clear, fast loading pages. No complicated tricks or techniques required. You can make the page reasonably pleasant in appearance too. Think of the sites you often visit: news…

Okay but let's be realistic-- you are not a major publisher trying to make money off these pages. You can say "yes my page loads in 100k and 300ms until DOMContentLoaded" all you want, that doesn't change the fact that when you slap a couple of pieces of advertising on there, it's going to slow down. To give you an idea-- the New York Times page without any advertising on it is 2MB and has a DOMContentLoaded event at…

>> When ad networks are able to run without almost 2MB of Javascript, then we can talk about how AMP isn't needed

AMP pages run ads....

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