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Google no longer requires AMP, but the replacement might be worse

theregister.com

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Re: Google no longer requires AMP, but the replacement might be worse

#61

Post by tyingq »

nightpool wrote: post #58
tyingq wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, nobody would willingly give up the most important part of their page's real estate (the top X pixels) and the branding value of what it says in the url bar...unless there was a tradeoff that made it worth it. As far as I can tell, carousel placement was that tradeoff. Until recently, you weren't allowed in unless you were on AMP. Also, I'm not sure this is well known, but if you navigate to a web page from the…

As a web developer, I really value the extra speed that having my page served from an AMP cache + predictive prefetching gives me. And now that signed exchanges have shipped, giving up the top X pixels and the URL bar are no longer required trade-offs to get that value.

"now that signed exchanges have shipped"

For Chrome, yes.

Re: Google no longer requires AMP, but the replacement might be worse

#62

Post by topicseed »

fddddd wrote: post #57
topicseed wrote: post #50

AMP was great for those with very low speed internet. The philosophy and implementation of AMP can be questioned (URL masking, content stored away from the origin) but it did show that users really wanted to click on pages that loaded fast. Core Web Vitals, as a publisher myself, are a nightmare. But at least we know what goes wrong as it's clearly laid right in front of the developer's eyes. So we go and fix thing a…

adblockers like uBlocker Origin was even better for low speed internet than amp.

Well, I do appreciate my ad revenue to pay my team members and myself so I won't be the one recommending that.

Re: Google no longer requires AMP, but the replacement might be worse

#63

Post by rchaud »

tyingq wrote: post #35
ehsankia wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is also surprised that people are still using AMP now that it's no longer required, because in the author's mind, AMP is so god dang awful that when given the chance, everyone would immediately want to get rid of it. Some people are so deeply lost in their hatred of AMP that they cannot even consider for a moment that maybe, just maybe, AMP actually does work well for some people. I'm glad it's no longer…

"Some people are so deeply lost in their hatred of AMP that they cannot even consider for a moment that maybe, just maybe, AMP actually does work well for some people." My assumption is that AMP is most heavily used by news organizations because of the requirement (recently rescinded) for carousel placement. Anecdotal, but I've talked with people at these organizations, and they definitely don't like AMP. They tolera…

Not just news, any website that still monetizes on the ad-supported "blog" model. So, videogame websites, sports websites, entertainment/gossip sites, you name it.

Re: Google no longer requires AMP, but the replacement might be worse

#64

Post by buran77 »

nicce wrote: post #52
fuzzy2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm? I think Parent is just hoping Google is required by law not to rank results this way. It would not bar access to anything.

I guess the difference comes, when law requirement happens on EU only, not globally. So the question is, which is worse; not regulate at all or regulated only in one area. It bars access from some point of view, it might not exist if you don't see it from search results.

There's no question. What you're suggesting is "I shot one leg, might as well shoot the other". There's no reason why it would be better if everyone suffers the same fate rather than about half a billion people having it better. Having to provide a better service for so many users just puts pressure on a company by showing every other user not benefiting yet that it's possible, that they can ask and expect more.

Re: Google no longer requires AMP, but the replacement might be worse

#65

Post by Lio »

nzmsv wrote: post #53
bruce343434 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you serve something in another country, you abide by their rules. Be it a physical product or a virtual one, which includes a website or webservice.

This is not, strictly speaking, an obvious forgone conclusion. Imagine that I call you over the phone, old school style, with voice. Would you or would you not want the governments on either end of the phone line to eavesdrop on our conversation so they can make sure it meets their local laws? What if we communicated by SMS? Email? Posting on a message board? Some people will have an "obviously yes, I want the govern…

Actually I'd quite like it if my government could block foreign phone calls that attempt to spoof local numbers.

If only as a way of stopping foreign criminal gangs from scamming the vulnerable.

The main reason this can't happen is because of international agreements that were made long before the internet age or this type of crime became a thing.

Re: Google no longer requires AMP, but the replacement might be worse

#66

Post by djtriptych »

I've been working on core web vitals for the better part of a year at a major news outlet. I have seriously mixed feelings. There's probably an hour-long talk about this in me but briefly:

- It's really nice and maybe unprecedented to have an alignment of business, user, eng, and seo goals. Google is using it's monopoly to change roadmap priorities across the industry. The web vitals themselves are unquestionably good for the user.

- Google's guidance on how the scores work and when changes will be incorporated into rankings / carousel eligibility has been overall poor. The info is out there but changes constantly and comes from myriad sources.

- Similarly, the way these scores are measured are a bit of a secret sauce. It's impossible really to model user behavior / devices in a way that ensures you will hit your performance targets. Google provides a lot of tooling/instrumentation, but the measurements sometimes conflict with one another.

I could go on. I'm the mst senior FE guy at this company and it's really consumed most of my work hours since last June, but that's kinda par for the course in publishing. Google swings it's weight around and publishers react.

Re: Google no longer requires AMP, but the replacement might be worse

#67

Post by forgetfulness »

jsnell wrote: post #60
blowski wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's phrasing the problem in a format where the only solution is Google. Re-phrasing it as "What else can a search engine do to stop being gamed?" opens up a lot more options. The real problem here is not 'gamed search engines' but too much centralisation, with Google owning the search engine, the browser, and the ad platform. This solution makes that problem worse, not better.

Sorry, no. You're moving the goalposts. The criticism from eli was not e.g. that using page speed as a ranking criteria is intrinsically bad. It was that the data was sourced only from Chrome (including the italics). It's like I've fallen into a crazy parallel dimension. For more than *five years* HN commenters have been ranting about how AMP is not needed, and all that's needed is using page speed as the signal. And…

So... you're thinking that HN is gaslighting you because you don't see that it's Google controlling the web and publishing that's the issue.

Re: Google no longer requires AMP, but the replacement might be worse

#68

Post by esrauch »

nzmsv wrote: post #53
bruce343434 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you serve something in another country, you abide by their rules. Be it a physical product or a virtual one, which includes a website or webservice.

This is not, strictly speaking, an obvious forgone conclusion. Imagine that I call you over the phone, old school style, with voice. Would you or would you not want the governments on either end of the phone line to eavesdrop on our conversation so they can make sure it meets their local laws? What if we communicated by SMS? Email? Posting on a message board? Some people will have an "obviously yes, I want the govern…

I think I disagree with the premise of your argument that we're choosing between one of "pervasive wiretapping level invasiveness" or "internet companies cant be regulated"

Do you want the government to bug you and watch every interaction you have in your local store to find out if the store is breaking the law? But then how does the government know if the store is just not paying their taxes, or selling drugs?

Laws can be enforced without resorting to wiretapping everyone by just not accepting you can't catch every single violation; that true both online and offline.

Re: Google no longer requires AMP, but the replacement might be worse

#69

Post by logicalmonster »

I hate this idea that the technology needs to be dictated by Google. If it's displayable in a web browser, that's all that should matter to a good search engine.

Just change the algorithm to reward fast websites even more.

If page speed currently counts for say 5% of a site's value in the algorithm, bump it up to 10%, 15%, 25% etc, whatever it takes until sites that pump in piles of garbage JS trackers and monstrosities start removing that stuff.

Sites that insist on leaving in garbage trackers and bloated designs will not show up as much. Problem solved without dictating technology.

Re: Google no longer requires AMP, but the replacement might be worse

#70

Post by nightpool »

tyingq wrote: post #61
nightpool wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a web developer, I really value the extra speed that having my page served from an AMP cache + predictive prefetching gives me. And now that signed exchanges have shipped, giving up the top X pixels and the URL bar are no longer required trade-offs to get that value.

"now that signed exchanges have shipped" For Chrome, yes.

That's a good point. Webkit's opposition to Signed Exchanges (ironically, canonically expressed in an HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19679621) means that I'm stuck with AMP for good performance on iOS for the foreseeable future.
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