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Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

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Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#21

Post by djur »

sk5t wrote: post #10
dingo_bat wrote: post #2

So basically this guy says all of the issues are by design and you can choose not to use amp if you don't like all of it. Google isn't going to penalize non amp pages in search ranking. They are just going to not show your page in the carousel. I think it's a pretty fair position to take. If you don't like amp don't use it. We'll see if amp catches on over a period of time.

"Gosh, I mean, you have a right to sell oil, sure, but maybe if you play by our rules, you'll have an easier time shipping it on the rail networks we own." It's plainly Standard Oil-style monopoly behavior from Google here.

It seems more like UPS saying "hey, we'll ship whatever you want (within reason) but if you can fit it in one of our standard box sizes it'll get there faster and cheaper". What is the ulterior motive or side benefit Google gets from people adopting AMP? Honest question.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#22

Post by dingo_bat »

criddell wrote: post #17
dingo_bat wrote: post #2

So basically this guy says all of the issues are by design and you can choose not to use amp if you don't like all of it. Google isn't going to penalize non amp pages in search ranking. They are just going to not show your page in the carousel. I think it's a pretty fair position to take. If you don't like amp don't use it. We'll see if amp catches on over a period of time.

Amp isn't ideal, but neither is Instant Articles on Facebook. I'm hoping that Amp is really just Google training publishers how to make web pages that aren't terrible for users.

Instant articles is even worse, IMO. But Facebook is not pretending it's the next version of the Web. Google is, so they set up an expectation of Web like behaviors.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#23

Post by epmatsw »

gleb wrote: post #9

As a user I've learned to avoid AMP pages because the UX is horrible: * back button is broken 1/2 the time * the bar wastes 1/3 of my screen * I can no longer see what site I am on in the url * it's hard to navigate to the / of the site * I can't forward the link * being on a good network in US it solves no problem that I have What I'd really like to see is a way to opt-out of seeing AMP'ed pages in my search results…

Interesting. As a user, I've learned to only click on AMP results. They load quickly and reliably (no blank white site) even on LTE, and they never have intrusive adds. If they added an option for "only show me AMP unless I click a button to ask for the other junk", I would opt in day 1.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#24

Post by mintplant »

cyrusshepard wrote: post #3

This is a good response and I appreciate Malte's effort to engage publishers, but it doesn't calm my nerves about the biggest publisher complaint about AMP: Google owns the chrome (top navigation) on all AMP pages. This makes it easy to navigate back to Google (why would you ever want to leave?) and other publishers in the AMP ecosystem, but much harder to navigate to the publisher that created the page in the first…

It's one more step along Google's path to eating the internet. Google-served content discovered through Google search rendered in Google's browser running on Google's operating system on a Google-manufactured device connected through Google's ISP and Google's network protocol (QUIC). Vertical integration.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#25

Post by Lxr »

gleb wrote: post #9

As a user I've learned to avoid AMP pages because the UX is horrible: * back button is broken 1/2 the time * the bar wastes 1/3 of my screen * I can no longer see what site I am on in the url * it's hard to navigate to the / of the site * I can't forward the link * being on a good network in US it solves no problem that I have What I'd really like to see is a way to opt-out of seeing AMP'ed pages in my search results…

Agree it's a signal for low-quality bordering-on-clickbait content, so subconsciously also find myself avoiding them. Unrelated: formatting lists like in your comment makes them really hard to read on mobile.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#26

Post by gleb »

Lxr wrote: post #25
gleb wrote: post #9

As a user I've learned to avoid AMP pages because the UX is horrible: * back button is broken 1/2 the time * the bar wastes 1/3 of my screen * I can no longer see what site I am on in the url * it's hard to navigate to the / of the site * I can't forward the link * being on a good network in US it solves no problem that I have What I'd really like to see is a way to opt-out of seeing AMP'ed pages in my search results…

Agree it's a signal for low-quality bordering-on-clickbait content, so subconsciously also find myself avoiding them. Unrelated: formatting lists like in your comment makes them really hard to read on mobile.

Thanks, formatting fixed.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#27

Post by FT_intern »

cyrusshepard wrote: post #3

This is a good response and I appreciate Malte's effort to engage publishers, but it doesn't calm my nerves about the biggest publisher complaint about AMP: Google owns the chrome (top navigation) on all AMP pages. This makes it easy to navigate back to Google (why would you ever want to leave?) and other publishers in the AMP ecosystem, but much harder to navigate to the publisher that created the page in the first…

To be fair, the user coming from a search engine is most likely to want to navigate back to Google than to stay on the page. It might not be benevolent but it is an improvement to the user experience of most people.

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#29

Post by jotto »

djur wrote: post #21
sk5t wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Gosh, I mean, you have a right to sell oil, sure, but maybe if you play by our rules, you'll have an easier time shipping it on the rail networks we own." It's plainly Standard Oil-style monopoly behavior from Google here.

It seems more like UPS saying "hey, we'll ship whatever you want (within reason) but if you can fit it in one of our standard box sizes it'll get there faster and cheaper". What is the ulterior motive or side benefit Google gets from people adopting AMP? Honest question.

The problem is that if you don't play by their "standard box" rules, you may not end up in the truck at all.

The users browsing the AMP results may never feel compelled to scroll down to see non AMP results.

So a publisher's choice isn't: "standard size for faster delivery", it's: "use AMP or receive less traffic than you're currently receiving"

Re: Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic”

#30

Post by cramforce »

rahrahrah wrote: post #7

He avoids really hard addressing the only bit that matters > Guess what happens when the "close" button is clicked inside the AMP view? And the amount of disingenuous on this just rubs me the wrong way: > If you are not comfortable with traffic on your AMP pages, please do not publish AMP pages.

Happy to address the close button:

You are on a search page, you go on layer deep by clicking. The close button goes back. I don't see what else it should do. Mind you that I do understand that a link to the origin server would be a good improvement (and I've stated that in the post).

I'm not sure what you find disingenuous. AMP are just web pages saying "HEY I A AMP, please use treat me as AMP". You can publish the same bytes minus the "HEY I A AMP" and get the old behavior.

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