Ever since its launch, the AMP Project has been surrounded by controversy. It promises fast page speeds and additional visibility on Google result pages but demands submission to a stripped-down form of HTML, essentially putting your website on a diet to make it more attractive to users. While there are glowing case studies, for many, the implementation was haphazard and the results confusing. This leaves the marketing industry questioning: is AMP important for SEO?
Today, we delve into whether AMP is worth it by examining its function and impact.
Though the AMP framework expands beyond AMP pages with Web Stories (or AMP Stories), AMP Email, and AMP Ads, these remain in early stages and will not be discussed here.
What Is AMP?
AMP, formerly known as Accelerated Mobile Pages, consists of lightweight pages designed to give mobile users a faster, more engaging experience. It’s an open-source HTML framework that provides a straightforward way to create fast, smooth-loading web pages prioritized for user experience. For most sites, it involves creating a stripped-down, mobile-optimized AMP copy of existing HTML5 page content. If an AMP version is available, users see it instead of the canonical page. AMP supports distributing content on the open web, unlike platforms like Facebook Instant Articles or Apple News that work through app-specific formats.
And This Is Where It Gets Political
Although technically open source, the project is heavily backed by a group including WordPress, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Bing, with Google as the primary code contributor and promoter. AMP prioritizes user experience by enforcing restrictions on ads and UI design: limiting CSS to 75KB, JavaScript to 150KB, and moving non-essential content out of the critical rendering path. However, its biggest speed advantage comes by hosting on Google servers, which allows Google to cache, preload, and prerender AMP content directly within search results.
Here’s the Rather Technical Part
To reach its rapid load speed, AMP pages are hosted on Google’s servers, cached, and prerendered by Google before a user clicks the link. When accessing AMP content via Google, users may see it in two ways:
- Google AMP Viewer: The source content from the publisher is displayed at the top, though the URL retains a Google domain.
- Signed exchange (SXG): Allows browsers to treat the page as belonging to your domain, adding an additional layer of content distribution, though limited by current browser support.
Overall, by controlling the HTML variant, pre-rendering AMP content, and favoring AMP pages, Google influences web architecture and monetization, drawing criticism within tech and SEO communities as a power grab over the web. Despite this criticism, many are attracted to AMP due to its advantages.
Advantages of AMP Pages
Faster Page Load Times
AMP itself isn’t a ranking factor, but speed is. Notably, AMP’s load time boosts can be substantial if implemented correctly, with Google citing a median load time under one second, enhancing user experience through faster load times, lower bounce rates, longer site visits, and increased conversion rates.
Additional Visibility in Google Search Results
AMP pages consistently come with enhanced visibility in Google mobile SERPs. They are identified with a lightning bolt icon, suggesting a fast-loading page. Additionally, AMP paired with valid structured data has a higher chance of achieving rich results and increased visibility via features like the top stories carousel.
Disadvantages of AMP
Developer’s Perspective:
- It’s a restrictive framework necessary to deliver promised speed.
- Requires extra effort to implement and maintain.
- Creates technical debt as AMP and canonical codes must stay synced.
- Doesn’t guarantee speed without the AMP Cache.
Sales Perspective:
- Presence of AMP adds complexity to ad inventory.
- Limits ad features, restricting disruptive ads.
Marketer’s Perspective:
- Costs double the crawl for one piece of content.
- Can drive impressions but not engagement.
- Complexity due to AMP viewer diluting brand identity through Google URL display.
How to Optimize AMP Pages
It’s crucial to ensure that AMP implementation is completed thoroughly to realize benefits. Key optimizations include ensuring discoverability via rel=”amphtml” and rel=”canonical” tags, using SEO-friendly AMP URLs, maintaining a consistent user interface, ensuring functionality, and having valid structured data.
Which Sites Should Implement AMP?
Deciding on AMP isn’t straightforward and varies by site needs. If desktop traffic dominates, AMP isn’t necessary. If your content is news-heavy and AMP settings are already in place, maintaining them could be beneficial until upcoming algorithm updates allow non-AMP pages for top stories.
Ultimately, if AMP pages can meet the required LCP within 2.5 seconds and AMP Cache benefits a significant portion of sessions, AMP maintenance may be warranted.
Assessing the Impact of AMP
Regardless of whether you’re adopting AMP or considering abandoning it, you should measure its true impact on user experience and site visibility through thorough use of Google Search Console and Google Analytics, ensuring setup is done effectively for proper reporting and insights.
To Sum Things Up
AMP’s mixed reception indicates it might soon lose its exclusive top stories placement, pushing visibility benefits into question. As speed continues being crucial with Core Web Vitals, AMP might become less advantageous if a site can achieve 2.5 seconds LCP independently. For committed stakeholders, ongoing AMP assessments and optimizations in Search Console and Analytics are paramount for leveraging its full potential.
