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Google Creates 'Dedicated Placement' in Search Results for AMP Stories

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Re: Google Creates 'Dedicated Placement' in Search Results for AMP Stories

#71
Why doesn't Google treat all websites that load under 100ms at par with an AMP site?

They keep using the ruse that AMP is important because it is all about fast loading sites and less frustrating user experience but they have page speed insights, and already rank sites based on load speed so why force this non standard on everyone? If they just said we'll give you a bolt icon and the perks for a site that loads under X ms no matter how you do it (AMP or anything else) a lot of people will welcome it.

Re: Google Creates 'Dedicated Placement' in Search Results for AMP Stories

#72

Seriously, I just don't get these hateful comments on Hacker News regarding AMP. It helps websites load fast on mobile, and users really appreciate when websites load fast.

Technically speaking it does nothing of the sort. It helps websites be absorbed by Google so that Google can retain the user on their site. Which keeps the experience fast. But you don’t need Google to make your site fast, and in some cases using AMP can slow your site down. If it was just about making the web fast, there wouldn’t be AMP-only features. It would just be “fast only” and websites would have to meet cert…

>It helps websites be absorbed by Google so that Google can retain the user on their site

Does it also keep every cookie on a page 1st party to Google, so they don't have (m)any more GDPR-type blockers?

Re: Google Creates 'Dedicated Placement' in Search Results for AMP Stories

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here but I wanted to add that search is at par 100% on the main search tab. Almost identical but less ads on DDG. Not sure about the images, they seem to just be different images. Google is better at news search. That's the only place I've noticed DDG not being as good at. But DDG is FAR superior as a user experience IMO because of the bangs https://duckduckgo.com/bang

My only issue with DDG (which doesn’t stop me using it) is if you turn off safe search (eg to prevent false positive blocks for something you want to find) holy shit does a lot of porn show up - for completely non-sexual terms. I’m a big boy, I’m not offended by most of it (the frequency of bizarre Simpson’s porn is a little weird) but it’s somewhat weird the way it appears. I searched for “power Mac case door”, all…

It seems that "gif" is bound strongly to "animated gif" which is bound more strongly to porn than other image types, possibly due to Tubmlr.

If you just click the image tab, things look fine.

FWIW, when I search for "power Mac case door" on Google, I only get crap above the fold. I have to scroll before I get to the results, scrolling one page only gets me to the first two results.

Re: Google Creates 'Dedicated Placement' in Search Results for AMP Stories

#74

Seriously, I just don't get these hateful comments on Hacker News regarding AMP. It helps websites load fast on mobile, and users really appreciate when websites load fast.

Sure, you're not wrong. "This webpage works best in Our Browser™️" was just a pointer to the user for a faster experience. It came at the small cost of crippling the web for a mere 15 years, probably costing a few billion hours user time wasted at horrible UX bred in a hostile corporate controlled environment. AMP is just the same all over again, just with a singular player which might just be too big to fail. Oh, an…

> "...just with a singular player which might just be too big to fail"

while i agree with the overall sentiment that google is pulling a microsoft, i don't see how this line is true. if google went away tomorrow, how would it lead to an economic downturn?

it would suck if you're all in on google in some way, but most of their products have competitors and substitutes, so you could switch. maybe android losing some core services that aren't immediately replaceable might cripple phones for some folks. the engineers could certainly find new jobs, and a bunch would go on to create new companies from the things they're working on now while soaking up all the idle wealth around the world looking for any return at all.

i rarely use google for anything, so maybe i'm missing the obvious.

Re: Google Creates 'Dedicated Placement' in Search Results for AMP Stories

#75

Why doesn't Google treat all websites that load under 100ms at par with an AMP site? They keep using the ruse that AMP is important because it is all about fast loading sites and less frustrating user experience but they have page speed insights, and already rank sites based on load speed so why force this non standard on everyone? If they just said we'll give you a bolt icon and the perks for a site that loads under…

> Why doesn't Google treat all websites that load under 100ms at par with an AMP site?

Because then it wouldn't be a wedge anymore.

Re: Google Creates 'Dedicated Placement' in Search Results for AMP Stories

#76
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically speaking it does nothing of the sort. It helps websites be absorbed by Google so that Google can retain the user on their site. Which keeps the experience fast. But you don’t need Google to make your site fast, and in some cases using AMP can slow your site down. If it was just about making the web fast, there wouldn’t be AMP-only features. It would just be “fast only” and websites would have to meet cert…

> It helps websites be absorbed by Google so that Google can retain the user on their site Does it also keep every cookie on a page 1st party to Google, so they don't have (m)any more GDPR-type blockers?

Are you trying to point this out as being a good thing? I don’t know the answer because I don’t click AMP links, but I don’t have a problem with GDPR nonsense anyway because I’m not in Europe.

Re: Google Creates 'Dedicated Placement' in Search Results for AMP Stories

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a mobile user, I fucking hate it. I hate that every fucking google search result on mobile web has its stupid little icon I hate that there is no way for me to disable it as a user I hate that it has muddied the waters in what the url bar means I hate that it has trained users to not question fake url bars. I hate that cloudflare so thoroughly jumped on its dick I hate that we invented a way to fake the address in…

> AMP is fast because it's incompatible with 99% of the bullshit client cpu heavy tracking and ad libraries, so they don't get included inside AMP pages. > We could have just had that, without all this stupid bullshit CDN redirection/misdirection bullshit. I agree the world could have faster pages without AMP. What would that take though? Would it take web developers across the world pushing back against including me…

Considering the severe downvotes for your question: Nothing. It didn't make a difference when Google announced penalties for slow loading sites and nothing would make a difference now.

Hence why web developers of HN are so angry at AMP - it bans them from building sites filled with 20MB of JavaScript bloat. If you read through HN history, you'll see hundreds of comments belittling anytone that complained about webpage size and slow loading - usually defending it with a "noone has time to optimize things and build without these huge libraries" argument.

Re: Google Creates 'Dedicated Placement' in Search Results for AMP Stories

#78

Seriously, I just don't get these hateful comments on Hacker News regarding AMP. It helps websites load fast on mobile, and users really appreciate when websites load fast.

As a user, I hate that AMP means that Google search results give me Google URLs instead of what I’m actually looking for.

As a developer, I hate that AMP is just another one of Google’s tentacles with which I have to contend.

Re: Google Creates 'Dedicated Placement' in Search Results for AMP Stories

#79
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AMP is fast because it's incompatible with 99% of the bullshit client cpu heavy tracking and ad libraries, so they don't get included inside AMP pages. > We could have just had that, without all this stupid bullshit CDN redirection/misdirection bullshit. I agree the world could have faster pages without AMP. What would that take though? Would it take web developers across the world pushing back against including me…

Isn't that up to the developers themselves - whether they want to shoot themselves in the foot by slowing down their site by including lots of JS? Who is Google to determine how the Internet should be run? Shoving AMP down people's throat - because Google can as it owns majority browser and search market share - is akin to large governments in the world pushing their weight around and sticking their noses in other co…

No, it's akin to large governments swooping in and regulating industries when they start hurting people en masse. Web developers weren't professional enough to make the web fast. AMP isn't the right solution, but the community itself was incapable of policing itself so it was just a question of time before it happened.

Before that, people were massively moving to the apps because the web got too slow and unusable on mobile.

Re: Google Creates 'Dedicated Placement' in Search Results for AMP Stories

#80
post #45

I for the life of me don't understand how any Google AMP engineers can bother defending this anymore. A couple weeks ago there was an AMP article related to using real, source URLs, and a bunch of engineers from Google posted in defense. This is absolutely Google trying to dictate what the web should be. If the US had functional antitrust authorities they would kill this.

When you're working day to day you tend to lose sight of the bigger picture and only focus on the problem you're trying to solve and either let your managers mostly decide what problems you will solve, or just work to get "features" implemented for promotional reasons.

I don't accept this excuse. Google engineers are smart people. It's not like they are not aware of what they are building.
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