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I decided to disable AMP on my site

alexkras.com

31–40 of 360 posts

Re: I decided to disable AMP on my site

#31
post #21

> On iPhone, AMP seems to override the default browser scrolling. As a result scrolling of AMP pages feels off. Good news! iOS 11 fixes this. Safari actually has an inconsistent scrolling speed compared to the rest of the OS. iOS 11 makes all Safari pages scroll at the same speed as AMP sites (-webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch) Also important distinction for people to remember - AMP is two products: - CDN with preloa…

Re: two products, I realized this but never really thought about it. Can one self-host an AMP (framework) implementation? Does Google still promote such content, even if it isn't part of their CDN?

It could be re-implemented, it's just "web components" last I looked

Re: I decided to disable AMP on my site

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree, while technically AMP is suitable but it creates a walled garden by using Google - who actually boost page rankings if you use it, so they have publishers by the balls "forcing" them to use AMP to get higher in their rankings.

AMP does not seem like a walled garden tech. any crawler can find and use the AMP version of a page through this tag: " rel="nofollow">https://www.example.com/url/to/amp/document.html"> Thus all google is doing is rewarding sites that have implemented this and as a result load fast, no? imo, its drastically different to Instant Articles because you can never ever find the Instant Articles version of a web page. its p…

I am not saying exactly that Google is evil, and maybe they don't even have bad intentions (heck, we are talking about a corporate identity here, how far can we apply morals?). But, what I am thinking is that AMP and its rivals (such as Instant Articles) hurt the free & open Web. For instance, Google Search is invaluable, but as a side effect, a website that doesn't end up on the first page of a Google Search result for instance, is nearly non-existent.

Also, the notion of hyperlinks are crucial to the Web and these projects break it. Hyperlinks originate from an article from 1945, "As We May Think"[1], and the term itself is coined by Ted Nelson in 1965 for Project Xanadu. That's how you create a web that is now called the Web. That's also what Google's PageRank algorithm depends on, at least at the beginning. Now, letting Google host your content, under a link such as `https://www.google.com/amp/www.example.com/amp/doc.html`, you are breaking hyperlinks: it is no more linking different websites together.

[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-m...

Re: I decided to disable AMP on my site

#34
post #22

The author has some very valid points against AMP from a technical standpoint, but for me there is a single reason that is sufficient: the Web is, and should stay, free and open . Indeed, I'm having really hard time trying to understand how people can be fine with AMP while fighting for the net neutrality and so on.

I fail to see what, in AMP, makes the web less free or open. I am usually among the first on the stockade on invasive tech, but I have a hard time to understand the fuss around AMP. Yes, the cache is problematic, as it may allow Google, in a possible future, to filter some content, censor some other or not refresh often some pages. The thing is, if it does that, people will start using Google's caching, that's as sim…

>I fail to see what, in AMP, makes the web less free or open.

Google serving your pages?

Hijacking your domain for the server pages and obscuring links to the original content?

Use of a proprietary technology (whether open sourced or not, it's not a standard)?

Abuse of power with veiled threats of punishing content publishers who are not using recommending AMP to make their pages "fast and responsive"?

The only way to be any more against the free and open web is if they made Google search a web proxy where you never get access to the underlying page...

Re: I decided to disable AMP on my site

#35
post #22

The author has some very valid points against AMP from a technical standpoint, but for me there is a single reason that is sufficient: the Web is, and should stay, free and open . Indeed, I'm having really hard time trying to understand how people can be fine with AMP while fighting for the net neutrality and so on.

I fail to see what, in AMP, makes the web less free or open. I am usually among the first on the stockade on invasive tech, but I have a hard time to understand the fuss around AMP. Yes, the cache is problematic, as it may allow Google, in a possible future, to filter some content, censor some other or not refresh often some pages. The thing is, if it does that, people will start using Google's caching, that's as sim…

In my opinion, the reason it makes the web less free and open is because Google has a de-facto monopoly on search and they're abusing it to force you host your content on their domain and to use proprietary technology in order to receive fair placement in their results.

In the past, Google said "we will prioritize search results by load speed." That's completely fair and a move I can applaud – it points out a serious problem with the web and leaves it up to publishers to come up with innovative and creative solutions of their own to reduce load time.

Now, Google has changed the deal. It doesn't matter how much you've innovated to provide a good experience to your visitors – it doesn't matter if you created a version that loads ten times as fast as AMP and provides a better user experience, you will still be penalized by Google if you don't use AMP. You will not be allowed in the carousel, regardless of how well your site performs. You will not be prioritized above AMP results, you won't see the "lightning bolt," even if your site is legitimately as fast as AMP. It kills any motivation for any company or person to develop a better system for loading pages quickly, because sites using it will never be able to overcome the unfair advantage given to AMP sites.

Re: I decided to disable AMP on my site

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree, while technically AMP is suitable but it creates a walled garden by using Google - who actually boost page rankings if you use it, so they have publishers by the balls "forcing" them to use AMP to get higher in their rankings.

AMP does not seem like a walled garden tech. any crawler can find and use the AMP version of a page through this tag: " rel="nofollow">https://www.example.com/url/to/amp/document.html"> Thus all google is doing is rewarding sites that have implemented this and as a result load fast, no? imo, its drastically different to Instant Articles because you can never ever find the Instant Articles version of a web page. its p…

>Thus all google is doing is rewarding sites that have implemented this and as a result load fast, no?

No. And Google could not care less if pages load fast -- it could incenticize making pages faster with traditional methods instead. It's all about capturing more eyeballs and proxying more traffic.

Re: I decided to disable AMP on my site

#37

> On iPhone, AMP seems to override the default browser scrolling. As a result scrolling of AMP pages feels off. Good news! iOS 11 fixes this. Safari actually has an inconsistent scrolling speed compared to the rest of the OS. iOS 11 makes all Safari pages scroll at the same speed as AMP sites (-webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch) Also important distinction for people to remember - AMP is two products: - CDN with preloa…

>Good news! iOS 11 fixes this.

It doesn't fix the "crappy wrapper that wants to do its own scolling instead of complying with the system" issue though.

Re: I decided to disable AMP on my site

#39
post #22

The author has some very valid points against AMP from a technical standpoint, but for me there is a single reason that is sufficient: the Web is, and should stay, free and open . Indeed, I'm having really hard time trying to understand how people can be fine with AMP while fighting for the net neutrality and so on.

I fail to see what, in AMP, makes the web less free or open. I am usually among the first on the stockade on invasive tech, but I have a hard time to understand the fuss around AMP. Yes, the cache is problematic, as it may allow Google, in a possible future, to filter some content, censor some other or not refresh often some pages. The thing is, if it does that, people will start using Google's caching, that's as sim…

The cache already hijacks pages in a bad way.

The [x] on the AMP banner is a back button that takes you back to Google. Most users would expect it to dismiss the banner and stay on the page.

If your AMP page was reached by a Google search carousel widget, they hijack left/right swipe on YOUR page to go to competitors pages.

And, after swiping, using the real back button skips any AMP pages in history and goes directly back to Google.

I suspect Google will do the same as they've done in search (ads vs organics)...keep taking ground in little bites over time, until it is a walled garden.

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