Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

thirtybees.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 159 posts

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#61

Post by cramforce »

kuschku wrote: post #24
ucaetano wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its that AMP is borderline an anti-trust. And why is that? > More traffic without conversions generally does not help an e-commerce site. You should not be using AMP for e-commerce, at least not for anything but a static product page. Again, if you try to drive a nail with a hammer and it doesn't work, the fault isn't on the hammer, it's on you.

> And why is that? Because you only get a ranking boost if your page > 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

As the otherwise pretty wrong article correctly states: There is no such ranking boost.

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#62

Post by baddox »

avaer wrote: post #50
godot wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if google made some machine verifiable guidelines for "light" webpages that would earn them this "icon". Linked from the "fat" page by some "link" meta tag. That is exactly what AMP is; with the exception (a huge one, I know) that Google also then caches the page on their server and serves it from a google.com host.

For Google, the hijack is the prime feature; AMP is the PR vehicle that makes it swallow. AMP could have been done without the huge exception, but then Google couldn't profit from it.

Regardless of profit, if Google just made the AMP spec and didn't incentivize publishers to use it, well, no one would use it.

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#63

Post by dazc »

sbov wrote: post #45
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #23

Despite understanding and largely agreeing with the concerns against AMP Cache that get discussed any time an AMP article gets posted on HN, I cannot stress enough on how relieved I feel to see the lightning icon next to a mobile search result, especially on my now aging phone. Most content websites have become such a massive crapfest of ad-bloat, bad UX, huge page sizes and general usability hell that it's nigh impo…

There's ways Google could fix this without AMP, such as factoring in total page weight when ranking mobile search results.

Absolutely this.

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#64

Post by andy_ppp »

ucaetano wrote: post #43
kuschku wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 No, you only get the boost if you allow any CDN to cache it. Please stop making the same baseless claim without providing sources.

The news carousel is all AMP just by chance and ranks higher in the page than the results; arguing semantics over the meaning of ranking is irrelevant if the most clicked thing is always AMP.

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#65

Post by rhizome »

dividuum wrote: post #31
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #23

Despite understanding and largely agreeing with the concerns against AMP Cache that get discussed any time an AMP article gets posted on HN, I cannot stress enough on how relieved I feel to see the lightning icon next to a mobile search result, especially on my now aging phone. Most content websites have become such a massive crapfest of ad-bloat, bad UX, huge page sizes and general usability hell that it's nigh impo…

Personally I don't think the idea behind AMP is bad. But the implementation is dangerous as it artificially fragments the web. I guess fewer would oppose AMP if google made some machine verifiable guidelines for "light" webpages that would earn them this "icon". Linked from the "fat" page by some "link" meta tag.

With Google I can never relax to think that something new will be a good thing for me, a user, but their "make mobile viewable" (or whatever the message is) reformatter for sites that still have 10 year old CSS could certainly result in some sort of signal displayed in search results. A mobile-viewability indicator, perhaps. I dunno, it sounds kinda hokey when I write it out like that, but I have to think they're going to productize it at some point.

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#66

Post by rhizome »

cramforce wrote: post #61
kuschku wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And why is that? Because you only get a ranking boost if your page > 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

As the otherwise pretty wrong article correctly states: There is no such ranking boost.

Not even for Google News purposes? That's 90% of the AMP links I see.

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#67

Post by kuschku »

cramforce wrote: post #61
kuschku wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And why is that? Because you only get a ranking boost if your page > 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

As the otherwise pretty wrong article correctly states: There is no such ranking boost.

There is no AMP carousel at the top of the page? Are you sure?

This is the ranking boost mentioned: http://i.imgur.com/KsSmYH8.png

"Top stories" relevant to the search are shown, even if they’d otherwise be on page 10 or worse of the actual search.

Any AMP page can end up there, but only AMP pages. This is a ranking boost.

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#68

Post by leeoniya »

avaer wrote: post #50
godot wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if google made some machine verifiable guidelines for "light" webpages that would earn them this "icon". Linked from the "fat" page by some "link" meta tag. That is exactly what AMP is; with the exception (a huge one, I know) that Google also then caches the page on their server and serves it from a google.com host.

For Google, the hijack is the prime feature; AMP is the PR vehicle that makes it swallow. AMP could have been done without the huge exception, but then Google couldn't profit from it.

> For Google, the hijack is the prime feature; AMP is the PR vehicle that makes it swallow.

this is 100% true. yet somehow there are still those who swear this isnt the case. i've ranted about it previously [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14695268

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#69

Post by avaer »

baddox wrote: post #62
avaer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Google, the hijack is the prime feature; AMP is the PR vehicle that makes it swallow. AMP could have been done without the huge exception, but then Google couldn't profit from it.

Regardless of profit, if Google just made the AMP spec and didn't incentivize publishers to use it, well, no one would use it.

Not saying that's true, but if it is, wouldn't that mean AMP is not a desired product?

I fully support a "faster page spec" that search engines incentivize, just like I support a ranking boost for using HTTPS.

But AMP isn't that; AMP is incentivizing the payment of tribute data to Google under the veneer of a faster page spec, to steer the rhetoric more favorably for the company.

Re: Google AMP is bad for e-commerce

#70

Post by JetSpiegel »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #23

Despite understanding and largely agreeing with the concerns against AMP Cache that get discussed any time an AMP article gets posted on HN, I cannot stress enough on how relieved I feel to see the lightning icon next to a mobile search result, especially on my now aging phone. Most content websites have become such a massive crapfest of ad-bloat, bad UX, huge page sizes and general usability hell that it's nigh impo…

The same AMP experience can be had with Firefox and uBlock Origin on old Android phones.
Post reply on HN