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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

#441

Post by gregable »

JoshMnem wrote: post #437
esrauch wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a bit unnecessarily tin-foil-hat. If they didn't put in the 8 second css rule it would just show blank for those users right? So adding that rule is making it work at all instead which doesn't sound like "there to punish them".

It's the other way around -- AMP pages show a blank page for 8 seconds for people with ad-blockers because of that CSS rule.

The behavior you describe occurs if the useragent blocks the URL https://cdn.ampproject.org/v0.js which does not have anything to do with ads or analytics.

Certainly an ad blocker can be used to block any URL, but I don't know of any that block this one by default. If there are any, let me know and I'm happy to file issues to get that fixed!

If a user chooses to block this particular resource which the page needs to load, then the page still loads after 8s.

Similarly, if the site owner chooses, they can run the AMP Toolbox optimizer (https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ampproject/toolbox-optimizer) which lays out the page server-side and removes this CSS flash for most documents. Some documents can't be laid out until the viewport size is known.

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

#442

Post by gregable »

dmitriid wrote: post #376
gregable wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMP pages are just HTML. Publishers can and do use AMP pages as their "regular" pages that every user sees, not just those coming from Google. Other aggregators (Bing, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) link to AMP versions. These pages are far from only accessible from Google queries.

Hello, gregablr who works on AMP and forgets to disclose it: No, AMP is not "just HTML". It's not HTML5-compliant. It requires js to run and display properly (because Web Components), it gets preferential treatment in Google Search. It's not plain HTML.

Any AMP page can be HTML5 compliant. AMP doesn't require that the page pass an HTML5 validator, but is entirely compatible with HTML5.

JavaScript and Web Components are part of the HTML5 standard. This is simply the Extensible Web (https://www.w3.org/community/nextweb/2013/06/11/the-extensib...)

My profile discloses that I work on AMP.

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

#443

Post by rland »

dwild wrote: post #227
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…

> If websites use the Comcast AMP framework, Comcast will cache their sites and make them faster for users. They probably do it with Netflix, some ISP do it with Steam too... there's nothing wrong with multilevel cache (except cache invalidation).

mmmh, I don't think this really holds up.

They do it with Netflix/Steam because they have to, because if they did not those services would choke bandwidth for everyone. With your Netflix example, there are maybe a dozen players with this type of arrangement -- it is the exception to the rule and has more to do with physical limitations of the network than political control. With AMP/non-amp websites, there are hundreds of millions of separate players, and no physical need to discriminate (my neighbor's network performance is identical whether I look at 2mb websites vs. 300kb websites)

I believe there is a fundamental difference between the two -- google's play is about control, not physical limitations.

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

#444

Post by bscphil »

earthboundkid wrote: post #365
bytematic wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, use google amp and get higher rankings and it can increase your traffic by hundreds to thousands to millions. I hate it but its how it works

Huh, weird, it's almost like they're abusing their search monopoly to push a technology that everyone hates and is only fast when compared to their ad monopoly.

> a technology that everyone hates

There are users in this thread that seem to like it quite a lot because it's faster than the original site, because it limits the amount of crap the original site can run. The only reason I don't like AMP is because I don't like an intermediary like Google rendering pages for me and probably tracking what I do on them. That's ... not even close to something on most people's radars, so there's no way "everyone" hates it for that reason.

I suspect most people have never heard of AMP and just like it when sites load fast.

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

#445

Post by bscphil »

joshuamorton wrote: post #367
RonanTheGrey wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Use AMP or your site will not be present in mobile search results" doesn't seem like monopolistic practices to you?

A priori not anymore so than otherwise downranking slow sites. The missing piece here is how using amp is beneficial to Google or harmful to consumers/other search engines to make it anticompetative.

> how using amp is beneficial to Google

You are correct, most people are leaving this out. I think an emphasis on asking why Google is pushing AMP, and whether that interest aligns with consumers, would be helpful in this thread.

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

#446

Post by lern_too_spel »

saagarjha wrote: post #431
lern_too_spel wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without their monopoly search position no one would be forced to adopt amp It is used by the major search engines in every major market, so yes, they would be forced to adopt AMP. Compare to Apple News, which gives the publisher even less control. Once again, how is it abusing their monopoly position if all their competitors get to benefit from it for free? Finally, how do you propose to enable safe prerendering on…

I don’t want prerendering if it comes with this attached to it. Fast pages don’t need prerendering.

Tell that to Apple, Facebook, and RSS aggregators, all of which do the same thing but worse. Whether or not you want it, I and apparently most other users do want it.

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

#447

Post by simcox90 »

system2 wrote: post #406
kccqzy wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They load massively faster than normal sites, especially on poor mobile connections where main sites sometimes hang indefinitely trying to load javascript, ads, etc. Have you tried the normal mobile websites with an adblocker?

Good luck doing it on mobile phone. I'd say 99.99% users out there on mobile never even attempted to use another browser than safari or chrome for ios.

Firefox on android lets you install most of the available desktop extensions, so you can use your favourite ad blockers

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

#448

Post by joegahona »

gregable wrote: post #442
dmitriid wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello, gregablr who works on AMP and forgets to disclose it: No, AMP is not "just HTML". It's not HTML5-compliant. It requires js to run and display properly (because Web Components), it gets preferential treatment in Google Search. It's not plain HTML.

Any AMP page can be HTML5 compliant. AMP doesn't require that the page pass an HTML5 validator, but is entirely compatible with HTML5. JavaScript and Web Components are part of the HTML5 standard. This is simply the Extensible Web ( https://www.w3.org/community/nextweb/2013/06/11/the-extensib... ) My profile discloses that I work on AMP.

Since you work on AMP, can you please disclose why Google results call the AMP carousel “Top Stories,” when indeed it’s not the top stories, but the top _AMP_ stories? Please create a ticket that instructs engineers to immediately change this nomenclature to either “Top AMP Stories” or start allowing non-Amp pages to appear in this carousel. This is misleading to users of Google.

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

#449

Post by lern_too_spel »

saagarjha wrote: post #439
lern_too_spel wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> google is abusing it's monopoly search position to pre-load. How is that abusing their monopoly search position? Abusing their monopoly search position would be making publishers integrate directly with them to enable preload, like Apple News. Instead, they ask publishers to serve documents that can safely be prerendered, and all their competitors get to (and do!) consume those documents as well to enable safe prer…

Apple isn’t running a dominant search engine that upranks Apple News results.

You're right. Apple is worse. They show only Apple News results.

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

#450

Post by JoshMnem »

gregable wrote: post #441
JoshMnem wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the other way around -- AMP pages show a blank page for 8 seconds for people with ad-blockers because of that CSS rule.

The behavior you describe occurs if the useragent blocks the URL https://cdn.ampproject.org/v0.js which does not have anything to do with ads or analytics. Certainly an ad blocker can be used to block any URL, but I don't know of any that block this one by default. If there are any, let me know and I'm happy to file issues to get that fixed! If a user chooses to block this particular resource which the page needs to…

People who block JS by default but who don't want to completely turn off JavaScript encounter that 8-second delay. (I'm using "ad-blocker" loosely -- it refers to any kind of tool that blocks ads and tracking. On my computer, it's blocked at the hosts level in addition to an add-on.)

Some people don't want to load resources from Google's servers, and they shouldn't be punished for it. That JS file isn't needed for AMP pages to load. People don't need to load JS to read text and view images. I don't think there is any reasonable argument to have any users hit an 8-second delay.

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