Google no longer requires AMP, but the replacement might be worse • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by wutwutwutwut » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #26

> The logic behind AMP goes like this: web developers suck at making fast websites, let's strip out all the stuff people don't need and cache it on our super-fast servers. Web developers don't suck at making fast websites. Publishers demand tons of ads and tracking scripts. If the person signing the paychecks wants the page to have 15MB of sketchy third-party JS, then the page will have 15MB of sketchy third-party JS…

> If the person signing the paychecks wants the page to have 15MB of sketchy third-party JS, then the page will have 15MB of sketchy third-party JS.

I was asked by management to add Google Tag Manager to the company site. When I saw that GTM included 15-20 tracking scripts I told them that unfortunately we can't include it until we have ensured that all of them act in accordance with GDPR. Legal was involved and agreed. Marketing gave up.

You're technically correct, but people who write pay checks often can be argued with. They often don't want to be on record taking decisions which can cause issues, and legal typically don't want to sign of on including 15MB unknown scripts on your site accepting credit cards.

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

#72

Post by eli » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

jsnell wrote: post #34

eli wrote: post #16

Here's a better criticism: the Core Vitals metrics that affect SEO rank on Google are sourced only from Chrome browsers . So an even more disproportionate amount of site performance work will now be focused just on what makes Chrome happy. Experimental Chrome features that boost performance metrics will be embraced in the name of SEO. Safari and Firefox can't offer that. It's another way Google uses their control of…

How do you propose they source that data from other browsers? Do you e.g. think Apple and Mozilla would provide them with a suitable feed, at a high enough granularity to be useful? And if they did, what do you think the public reaction would be to such data sharing?

I don't think that I'm obligated to solve a problem just because I observed it.

But yes, I think it's plausible that other browser makers could allow users to opt in to this sort of data reporting. It would lead to a more equitable web.

I'm also not totally convinced that page performance should play a significant role in rankings in the first place.

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

#73

Post by thejohnconway » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

jsnell wrote: post #34

eli wrote: post #16

Here's a better criticism: the Core Vitals metrics that affect SEO rank on Google are sourced only from Chrome browsers . So an even more disproportionate amount of site performance work will now be focused just on what makes Chrome happy. Experimental Chrome features that boost performance metrics will be embraced in the name of SEO. Safari and Firefox can't offer that. It's another way Google uses their control of…

How do you propose they source that data from other browsers? Do you e.g. think Apple and Mozilla would provide them with a suitable feed, at a high enough granularity to be useful? And if they did, what do you think the public reaction would be to such data sharing?

How about testing sites themselves with those browsers and benchmarking that?

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

#74

Post by nzmsv » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

Lio wrote: post #65

nzmsv wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And there are others who, when faced with the trade-off, would choose differently.

It's amusing how on another thread the general consensus may be a celebration of Let's Encrypt while over here I seem to come off as crazy (and thus deserving of downvotes simply for saying "not everyone agrees with you").

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

#75

Post by rchaud » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #47

BigBalli wrote: post #29

"some arbitrary set of performance standards"? Less than 3s load time, reasonable DOM size, and low FID are all widely accepted as a "good UX". Just another veiled article criticizing Google's dominance rather than a technical one.

Look, you're right that this is essentially Google making everyone eat their vegetables but isn't it a little wild that this single company has so much control over the internet that they can basically make sweeping decrees like this?

No, I don't think so. There are hundreds if not thousands of unique domains for nearly every single query. Very few of those are providing first-hand, unique information. Take Apple product announcements; there are hundreds of high-traffic blogs basically creating identical content rehashing a press release or writing posts about newly announced products.

There has to be a way of prioritizing some of these sites over others. Same goes for sports, celebrity/gossip, news, etc. That would be most of the open web right there.

Google also moved to mobile-first indexing some years ago. Was that unfair to mom-and-pop shops that didn't have a responsively designed site? Perhaps, but if the website is something that brings you business, it's a tool that should be sharpened when dull, and replaced when its rusty.

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

#76

Post by PostThisTooFast » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

jsnell wrote: post #34

eli wrote: post #16

Here's a better criticism: the Core Vitals metrics that affect SEO rank on Google are sourced only from Chrome browsers . So an even more disproportionate amount of site performance work will now be focused just on what makes Chrome happy. Experimental Chrome features that boost performance metrics will be embraced in the name of SEO. Safari and Firefox can't offer that. It's another way Google uses their control of…

How do you propose they source that data from other browsers? Do you e.g. think Apple and Mozilla would provide them with a suitable feed, at a high enough granularity to be useful? And if they did, what do you think the public reaction would be to such data sharing?

What data? They don't need any data. It's goddamned Web page.

Google is a bunch of hypocrites and hacks. Remember when they threatened to punish "non-mobile-friendly" sites, and then DISABLED ZOOMING on their OWN mobile version?

Google = jagoffs

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

#77

Post by SquareWheel » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

justinph wrote: post #43

Fun think about core web vitals and amp: AMP pages will _always_ win core web vitals, because they're measured from google's CDN, where they can be pre-rendered. Unless the page is motherfuckingwebsite.com, the AMP version is going to score better in every metric than a non-AMP version. Core Web Vitals just cements AMP as a shortcut to performance.

That seems pretty unlikely. Do you have any information that backs this up?

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

#78

Post by dado3212 » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

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…

It’s true of any contentious content. The commenters who engage are usually the ones who want to push back against the main article (otherwise you just get a highly upvoted post with minimal comments because it’s hard to come up with a value-adding way to say “yes, this”). But you end up getting different people commenting on both sides, with neither half as invested when the source agrees with them. Grouping them together as a cohesive “HN” obscures that division, and makes it seem like the position suddenly reverses.

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

#79

Post by djrogers » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

ehsankia wrote: post #14

judge2020 wrote: post #7

In case you're trying to find what the replacement is: > Unfortunately, there are problems with AMP's replacement as well. And those problems go right back to what was wrong with AMP in the first place: Google is in charge of it. So the problem isn't core web vitals nor AMP itself, but the fact that everyone uses Google and they control the results on google.com. We can now go back to our regularly scheduled discussi…

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…

> The article is also surprised that people are still using AMP now that it's no longer required

It feels like we read different articles, because the in one I read the author spent a lot of time explaining that AMP would probably be around for a while for a number of predictable reasons.

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

#80

Post by eli » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

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…

HN isn't a monolith and someone will always find something to complain about. (I'm happy to be the someone here.)

Google has such a dominant position in both search and browsers that, yeah, they're going to need to work extra hard to make sure one doesn't unfairly advantage the other.