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How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

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Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#211

Post by Andrex »

thejohnconway wrote: post #4
RobertRoberts wrote: post #2

I think there needs to be a real alternate solution from Google for longer term change. (if Google wants to stay relevant) Can they just penalize slow/large file size sites in their index? This seems like the underlying goal behind AMP and Chrome's Lighthouse (site audit tool) any way. This would make a lot of sites fast in the next couple months. But maybe Google doesn't really want that?

> Can they just penalize slow/large file size sites in their index? Well, that would be bad for the independent web, wouldn't it? I mean, you'd be penalising sites with large amounts of content, that aren't on a CDN. Large images or videos, for example, might be the entire point of the page in the first place. I don't want to be directed to to a webpage about an artist (for example) that has the crappiest, smallest a…

Crawlers are smart enough to measure various types of slowness; images/video are non-blocking so although they're bandwidth-heavy, adding a bunch to your site is probably less "damaging" than a slow initial server response or first paint.

> I don't want to be directed to to a webpage about an artist (for example) that has the crappiest, smallest and fastest loading images, I want the one with the best images.

There are several technologies available for progressively-enhanced images, and Chrome is experimenting with lazy-loading all images[1]. This argument does not exist in practice.

[1] https://web.dev/native-lazy-loading/

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#212

Post by bduerst »

tyingq wrote: post #105
brentonator wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I invite you to go to your local Fox/ABC/CBS channel's website and TRY to read an article vs AMP. AMP is about stopping....that. It's indescribable how horrible these companies have become. 1. Auto-playing ads 2. Scroll-jacking 3. Overlay...after overlay... after overlay. 4. Popover 5. Paywall 6. Popover again for good taste. 7. Oops you scrolled too far better redirect you to another page entirely. 8. You wanted the…

Google is capable of driving SERP and carousel position based on the performance of the site. They don't need AMP for that. AMP is very much about creating an semi-walled garden. Any performance benefit is the lovely exterior of the Trojan horse.

And has been. Look at how well that worked for mobile web.

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#213

Post by MisterOctober »

40four wrote: post #44
brianzelip wrote: post #23

Here's one great takeaway: > Treat the cause: Third-party requests slow down the web > ... > - Google owns 7 of the top 10 most popular third-party calls > ... > So you can see why there must be some kind of internal struggle at Google. They understand the value of a faster web but they also cannot go after the main cause of the slow web. And this is how technology such as AMP gets invented and makes things worse. It…

Preach brother preach! I made this move myself many months ago & never looked back. There is basically nothing I miss about dropping chrome/ google search. My web experience is indiscernible using Firefox & DDG. One of the only minor things I've had to adjust to is prefixing searches with my local city & state when I'm searching for things in my hometown (Imagine that! My search engine website isn't tracking my physi…

Yep, same here -- switched to DDG a couple years ago and back to FF from Chrome [except when required for the job] a few months ago. Results excellent. I understand that a lotta folks are dissatisfied with DDG's search performance, but it's been plum dandy for me. In particular, since most of what I'm searching is development-related, my experience has been that DDG results are usually _better_ that goog, i.e., I find that sites with reasonable content and SO usually rank above ad-sodden or rubbish-quality-SEO-trap site.

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#214

Post by usaphp »

elbrian wrote: post #126
idoubtit wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stop using chrome. Honestly, wtf?! Firefox is awesome. I do not use Chrome, but I don't think Firefox is awesome. While I use FF, partly for moral reasons, my experience is average and I saw many flaws and bugs. I prefer the features of Vivaldi, which is based on Chromium, but does not phone home to Google. > STOP USING google SEARCH! While my default search engine is Duck Duck Go, I don't recommend it to friends a…

> I saw many flaws and bugs. Can you tell us about (or link us to) some of the many bugs you found in Firefox?

This one is very annoying and has been there for 8+ years now: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29986977/firefox-ignores...

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#215

Post by summerlight »

buboard wrote: post #115
mrtksn wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: what else those websites are supposed to do (that AMP does not provide) with all those megabytes of scripts? Newspapers display a text and an image and very rarely an interactive content(Election day maps and charts, mostly). Is there a reason FROM USERS PERSPECTIVE to have different website codebase for each publisher? For years the Web community kept creating new JavaScript libraries every day and…

from USERS PERSPECTIVE, amp is meh. yes it's faster, does it really matter if you re getting an article in 1 second when you -obviously- plan to spend 2 minutes reading it? i dont know anyone who thinks so, perhaps your USERS do > A strealined conent delivery platform prioritizing UX that the publishers failed to create what you re implying is, Google failed to improve their algorithms to bypass obvious SEOs, so they…

> if you re getting an article in 1 second when you -obviously- plan to spend 2 minutes reading it?

In my experience, 99.9 percentile is more like 2~30 seconds in NorCal with a potentially sub-optimal ISP. I expect this to be even worse in developing countries like south/southeast asia.

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#216

Post by bduerst »

rland wrote: post #210

Imagine if Cox or Comcast came up with AMP. Same technology, same idea. If websites use the Comcast AMP framework, Comcast will cache their sites and make them faster for users. See, it's about the users! Because the Comcast AMP framework is open, and has nothing to do with the business interests of Comcast. Comcast will give a bit to open source and have a few conferences per year to make sure developers know that i…

Comcast wouldn't do that because Comcast already flat out charges publishers like Netflix to not be deprioritized on their network. It would be analogous to Google charging publishers for top organic search positions.

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#217

Post by ce4 »

nkrisc wrote: post #176
justzisguyuknow wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also switched earlier this year, and my only complaint is that FF's android browser has some weird quirks with how it registers touches, and sometimes doesn't actually click a link when I tap it. However, the value of actual ad-blocking and increased privacy far outweigh the minor frustration of this UI issue.

> FF's android browser has some weird quirks with how it registers touches It absolutely does, and it drives me up the wall some times. In fact, try visiting this site on Firefox Android and try upvoting something. It's nearly impossible.

Double tap and swipe down to quickly zoom into the button temporarily and then zoom out again. It's fast and doesnt require two hands for a pinch gesture.

Also make sure to check "settings => accessibilty => always enable zoom"

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#218

Post by amiga_500 »

bluGill wrote: post #83
eyeundersand wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be just me but I don't get why people on here tend to be critical about DDG's usability. I made the switch a year and a half back and I seriously don't miss anything. There are some niche cases where it doesn't work, you can just use the bangs in those cases. The trade-off, like you said, is well worth it. (Upon typing this, I realize I'm just echoing your comment. Either way, leaving this up to provide one…

When I first tried DDG - more than 5 years ago - it was worse. I was unable to find the answers I needed and ended up back at google. I tried off and on a few times over the years, and about a year ago I found it good enough to switch. The few times DDG doesn't find what I need I tried google: it too failed to find what I needed. In short, if you last tried DDG a long time ago try again, it is much better.

When I use ddg I find more relevant emacs blogs than with Google, which has endless crap in their results

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#219

Post by bduerst »

ctingom wrote: post #182
lern_too_spel wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bing also uses AMP. That might be why you love it.

Interesting. Maybe it is, but wouldn't I be able to see that in the url?

The AMP standard doesn't need use URL hijacking anymore: https://www.cloudflare.com/website-optimization/amp-real-url...

Re: How to fight back against Google AMP as a web user and a web developer

#220

Post by newnewpdro »

v7p1Qbt1im wrote: post #203
Enginerrrd wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither does google anymore though. Their search quality has gone hill dramatically in the last 4-5 years. It basically correlates with wikipedia no longer being the first result of most searches; it was largely replaced with commercialized garbage. Getting the highest quality, unbiased information you asked for isn't really their first priority anymore and it shows. I tried DDG when it first came out and found it un…

The reason Google, or search engines in general, seem to be getting worse in the eyes of some users, is not the result of the functioning of the engine necessarily, but rather of the content of the web itself. The whole web is organized and optimized more and more for clicks and watch time. It would only make sense that the results seem to be correspondingly worse.

And yet people are happier with the results from competing search engines...
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