Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed • Hacker News Board

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#71

Post by greenspot » Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 4:41 PM UTC

mikecb wrote: post #65

greenspot wrote: post #39

I have a bad feeling. Google is creating a proprietary version of the mobile Internet, a layer between them and us. Looking at the specs, it's open but paired with the AMP cache and Google's ranking algorithm which already clearly prefers AMPed pages it doesn't feel like a free choice. What if I don't want to use Google's AMP cache and rather my own CDN? What if I don't want this useless AMP banner at the top of my A…

Cloudflare just launched their own amp cache. Nothing proprietary about this.

Ok, didn't know and good info. Do you know if it will be treated equally SEO-wise?

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#72

Post by colept » Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 4:43 PM UTC

rubyn00bie wrote: post #36

I hate AMP. Not even kind of, I mean so much I've started using Bing (DuckDuckGo hasn't been so useful for me). Beyond the distasteful navigation hijacking, and often broken or buggy page loading... I think Google throwing its weight around to force publishers to use it is an abusive use of power. I also think it's an unnecessary standard since it's nothing more than simple well wittten HTML and CSS. Yes, we should m…

AMP is devastating blow to Publishers because not only does it marks Google's intent to steal away traffic, but also punish publishers for not allowing that to happen.

What choice do you have? Reject traffic from Google? Every time I have been to an AMP-enabled page it's been an awful experience and unwanted. But you don't "search" for something you "Google" it.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#73

Post by colept » Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 4:47 PM UTC

adtac wrote: post #26

To everyone who's against AMP - try opening any article on an extremely slow 2G connection when you're travelling and try the same with AMP. The difference is night and day. You may be against some principles, but it's an absolute life-saver sometimes.

Nobody is particularly against having a site that loads quickly. The problem is AMP is a double-edged sword and its implementation siphons traffic from sites and hurts publishers.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#74

Post by fragmede » Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 4:55 PM UTC

tiffanyh wrote: post #42

There's a lot of hate going on in this thread towards Google ... maybe unfairly. Keep in mind, a huge reason why Google created AMP is because website bloat has gotten out of control. It's not uncommon for a simply Wordpress blog to be 4MB in size and have 70 requested objects to fetch. I live in a geography that has LTE and web site are painfully slow to load on mobile devices. I can't even imagine what the Internet…

You have a valid point about page bloat, but its a distraction and a poor excuse for hijacking the entire web. My hate for AMP is because Google is using its might to break a fundamental contract for how the web works - the URL bar shows what site you're on, and content is coming from that domain.

No other site has gotten away with this. The last time I can recall someone attempting something similar was Digg (remember them?) with the "Digg bar" which added a toolbar linking back to Digg for all of the internet, and well, what happened to them?

Now, I'm visiting https://news.google.com/news/amp?caurl=htt%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcne.... in order to get content from NBC News, while http://www.nbcnews.com works just fine. The writers of the article I'm reading are (ostensibly) hired by NBC news, not news.google.com, and there's no way to get to the same article on www.nbcnews.com unless I do something really awkward, like go back to Google and hunt and peck (I'm on my mobile phone, remember?) to type in "site:www.nbcnews.com article name".

I have hate for the UI of AMP itself (they broke scrolling down to get to the URL bar somehow), but that's also a distraction from the fundamental contract that AMP breaks.

Google would (rightly) get pissed if I made my own search page which "rebranded" Google search results to have my advertisement and then present the Google search results as coming from me; I hate them for doing the same thing to news publishers.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#75

Post by NicoJuicy » Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 4:59 PM UTC

To all people who are defending AMP with 2g arguments, i never have 2g, 3g is the minimum. I don't like it. Make it opt-out please :)

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#76

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 5:03 PM UTC

pmlnr wrote: post #66

neilcarpenter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMP is open - https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml

If I can't host it, it's not open, end of story. With AMP, it's always by google. This is not open, there is no source, because AMP is a hosted service.

[deleted]

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#77

Post by objclxt » Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 5:12 PM UTC

tiffanyh wrote: post #67

greenspot wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5 different JavaScript frameworks This is not the problem. You can easily use i.e. React and some related libs on mobile without slowing down the experience at all. Everything will be fast and responsive, loading times and the mobile site itself (if done right). The problem Google tries to address (and this is a real problem) are the cascaded ad networks on webpages which load hundreds of JS libs once a page is loa…

>> "This is not the problem. You can easily use i.e. React and some related libs on mobile without slowing down the experience at all." Hasn't Facebook proven this to be incorrect. Facebook mobile app was originally just HTML5 & JavaScript. The experience was so slow, they ditched it and instead built a native iOS & Android app. [1] [1] https://techcrunch.com/2012/12/13/facebook-android-faster/

That article is four years old. Facebook's app architecture has changed significantly since then, as has the speed at which JS can execute.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#78

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 5:14 PM UTC

rubyn00bie wrote: post #36

I hate AMP. Not even kind of, I mean so much I've started using Bing (DuckDuckGo hasn't been so useful for me). Beyond the distasteful navigation hijacking, and often broken or buggy page loading... I think Google throwing its weight around to force publishers to use it is an abusive use of power. I also think it's an unnecessary standard since it's nothing more than simple well wittten HTML and CSS. Yes, we should m…

[deleted]

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#79

Post by shostack » Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 5:23 PM UTC

colept wrote: post #72

rubyn00bie wrote: post #36

I hate AMP. Not even kind of, I mean so much I've started using Bing (DuckDuckGo hasn't been so useful for me). Beyond the distasteful navigation hijacking, and often broken or buggy page loading... I think Google throwing its weight around to force publishers to use it is an abusive use of power. I also think it's an unnecessary standard since it's nothing more than simple well wittten HTML and CSS. Yes, we should m…

AMP is devastating blow to Publishers because not only does it marks Google's intent to steal away traffic, but also punish publishers for not allowing that to happen. What choice do you have? Reject traffic from Google? Every time I have been to an AMP-enabled page it's been an awful experience and unwanted. But you don't "search" for something you "Google" it.

It is in essence Google following FB in what they did with Instant Articles. Users start in their ecosystem and they don't see any value in them leaving their ecosystem unless they are going to buy something.

Publishers typically aren't where people go to buy things. In fact, I imagine Google views them as part of COGS in a sense since they are what create display inventory.

So if Google has the leverage to reduce the cost and increase user satisfaction while simultaneously exerting more control on the display ecosystem, it seems like a smart business move to do so.

Re: Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed

#80

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee » Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 5:29 PM UTC

rubyn00bie wrote: post #36

I hate AMP. Not even kind of, I mean so much I've started using Bing (DuckDuckGo hasn't been so useful for me). Beyond the distasteful navigation hijacking, and often broken or buggy page loading... I think Google throwing its weight around to force publishers to use it is an abusive use of power. I also think it's an unnecessary standard since it's nothing more than simple well wittten HTML and CSS. Yes, we should m…

I completely agree. The fact that this cannot be disabled (like preferring a desktop site over a mobile one) is really annoying. Google is meddling too much in the website, they need to back off.