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Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

thirtybees.com

11–20 of 159 posts

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#11
post #8
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What keeps you from simply not using it?

Oh? So how do I get into the AMP carousel on Google search without implementing AMP on my site? This is a major ranking factor, in some situations moving sites that would be on page 13! to the #1 spot in search. In other cases, the effect is less visible. That is what keeps people from not implementing AMP. And you get this ranking benefit not for using AMP, or for a certain performance, but it is given to everyone t…

Cloudflare Serves as a AMP CDN

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#12
post #9

The author seems to completely misunderstand the point of AMP. It was never designed or created for dynamic, interactive content, especially e-commerce. This is like complaining that a hammer is bad for driving screws.

I don't think its that. Its that AMP is borderline an anti-trust. But the point is, even with the speed and possible ranking boost, does it boost conversions? More traffic without conversions generally does not help an e-commerce site.

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#16
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh? So how do I get into the AMP carousel on Google search without implementing AMP on my site? This is a major ranking factor, in some situations moving sites that would be on page 13! to the #1 spot in search. In other cases, the effect is less visible. That is what keeps people from not implementing AMP. And you get this ranking benefit not for using AMP, or for a certain performance, but it is given to everyone t…

> If I want to run AMP from my own CDN, I can’t do it Got a source for that? I always heard that the criteria for the carousel was AMP-compatibility, not being hosted on Google's CDN.

There is no direct source, but you can try it, or just look at the current implementation.

Currently, Google serves AMP by serving all AMP search results from its own cache, which allows Google to add features such as the header bar, or the swiping between carousel elements. This doesn’t work if the pages are from different origins.

EDIT: I found some sources:

> contain a " rel="nofollow">https://cdn.ampproject.org/v0.js"> tag inside their head tag.

https://www.ampproject.org/docs/reference/spec#required-mark...

Which prevents self-hosting the JS

And https://developers.google.com/amp/cache/faq

> Q: Can I stop content from being cached?

> A: No. By using the AMP format, content producers are making the content in AMP files available to be cached by third parties. For example, Google products use the Google AMP Cache to serve AMP content as fast as possible.

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#17
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh? So how do I get into the AMP carousel on Google search without implementing AMP on my site? This is a major ranking factor, in some situations moving sites that would be on page 13! to the #1 spot in search. In other cases, the effect is less visible. That is what keeps people from not implementing AMP. And you get this ranking benefit not for using AMP, or for a certain performance, but it is given to everyone t…

Cloudflare Serves as a AMP CDN

And yet, you only get a ranking boost if you allow Google to cache your page on their CDN. You can not run your own modified version of the AMP js, or run AMP’s js from your servers, or opt out of being cached by Google’s CDN and get the ranking boost.

To quote the AMP specs, a page is only eligible for showing up as AMP in search if it

> contains a " rel="nofollow">https://cdn.ampproject.org/v0.js"> tag inside their head tag.

and

> is allowed to be cached in the Google AMP cache

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#18

Why would you build your whole site on AMP??? Please read this before think about build AMP. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/12/progressive-web-amp...

> Why would you build your whole site on AMP???

To get a ranking boost? For some search terms, moving to full AMP gives you a ranking boost catapulting you from page 13 or worse to the #1 result. So if you don’t use that, someone else will use that advantage.

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#19
post #9

The author seems to completely misunderstand the point of AMP. It was never designed or created for dynamic, interactive content, especially e-commerce. This is like complaining that a hammer is bad for driving screws.

I don't think its that. Its that AMP is borderline an anti-trust. But the point is, even with the speed and possible ranking boost, does it boost conversions? More traffic without conversions generally does not help an e-commerce site.

First, how is it anti-trust? And second, it's been shown that faster page loads = better conversions since your bounce rate drops. This is especially true for mobile.

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#20
post #5

AMP is fine. AMP Cache is embrace, extended and break the web in fairly fundamental ways.

Cloudflare provides AMP cache. If you don't want to use Google CDN.

That still doesn’t give you any of the ranking boost – that is only given if you allow Google to cache it on their CDN. Google does that by default, you likely don’t even notice it, but if you try to prevent it, you lose the ranking boost.
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