What is Google AMP?
Google AMP is an initiative to create attractive webpages that load quickly on mobile devices.
Google AMP is a way of fast-tracking content to mobile devices and is an improved version of the traditional model of mobile service content.
AMP seems to be increasingly prioritized in Google mobile results. An AMP version is a very lightweight and mobile-oriented version of the website’s content.
Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) is an open-source website publishing technology that will aim to make the mobile web experience faster. AMPs are designed to improve the performance of web content and advertisements.
Google AMP project includes large searches, social, and web-publishing platforms around the world. AMP pages are published on the open web and can be displayed in most of the browsers.
Google AMP is similar to a bootstrap framework that is based on CDN (content delivery network) to load faster.
AMP uses the Google cache mechanism to load pages. The use of JavaScript is completely restricted because it slows down the load speed.
Google AMP is not available for desktop SERPs. You can see amp results on mobile SERPs only. AMP is most suitable for websites which have more large content such as video, images, flash, animations, PDF, etc.
Now many popular search engines, social media channels, CMS, and e-commerce websites support AMP.
Google AMP page offers minimal elements in the following format:-
- Logo
- Headline
- Author, Date, Category, Tags
- Featured Image
- Body Content
Importance of Google AMP for SEO –
AMPs are known for two major benefits – Speed and Page Ranking. Google AMP offers speed which helps in SEO and improves page ranking.
Your page rank depends on the page speed of high-quality mobile readiness. This factor determines the placement of your website in SERPs.
User experience has always played an important role in SEO. If a website takes too long to load, the user will exit immediately.
Google officially declared website speed as a crucial ranking factor. AMP reduces the size and increases the speed of your website.
AMP affects clicks, impressions and overall user-experience which further affects SEO. The AMP enables the content to load instantly by removing the coding of JavaScript on the page.
It priorities the content based on the text and loads additional content. This open-source initiative is launched by Google.
The AMP was also launched to compete with the Facebook Instant Article and the Apple News. The AMP webpages have a very fast loading speed.
AMP websites consume less data which loads in less than a second. AMP is a suitable tool to consider for your website.
AMP’s search engine metadata requirements help extremely with SEO. AMP-certified pages are eligible for Google Search Image Carousels.
How does Google AMP Works –
Google initially launched AMP for static content-heavy websites such as blogs. Since an AMP page is a copy version of the original version.
It improves readability for the user. AMP is estimated to load 4X faster and use 10X fewer data and on an average load in less than a second.
Google AMP speeds up the mobile version of your website by offering lightweight versions of your pages hosted on Google’s servers.
Google AMP works by letting you create a duplicate of your website using AMP HTML. Google AMP significantly reduces the use of HTML and JavaScript.
The website’s content is stored in AMP Cache servers and Google provides cache content and pages load faster when users click on content. The users get the information very fast and the AMP mark is also shown for your website in SERPs.
AMP is uncomfortable with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript elements and it only includes the most important content (text, images, videos, and website ads).
There are three critical factors of Google AMP that are as follows: AMP HTML, AMP JavaScript, and AMP Cache.
HTML, JavaScript, Cache libraries along with some extensions can help deliver feature-rich content like PDFs, video files, and infographics quickly.
# AMP HTML – It’s the regular HTML extended with AMP HTML tags. The webpage’s AMP version is linked in its header. It’s a pre-processing tag set that is mainly limited to text formatting and image embedding tags.
A search engine reads this tag and decides whether it wants to load the AMP version or the regular version while searching for the parameters.
AMP HTML uses a lean model by intentionally not supporting heavy HTML tags or replacing them with performance-driven AMP tags.
AMP JavaScript – It allows facilitates the fast rendering of the HTML and CSS elements. The design elements that take time to load are removed from the AMP JavaScript.
It renders the content by downloading and pre-sizing images. The render-blocking can keep the page loading fast.
It loads all external resources in a non-parallel way from unimportant content to the actual words and images load fast. The AMP JavaScript also restricts the sizes of the components and frames.
The page layout is precalculated with the streamlined loading process. Google has its own JavaScript framework which is optimized specifically for a user’s mobile experience.
AMP Cache – It’s a proxy-based Content Delivery Network (CDN). When you create an AMP version of a webpage, it’s pushed to the AMP servers.
It’s also known as AMP Content Delivery Network (CDN) and it takes the most recent content and prepositions on the web world.
It also provides the option of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) where valid AMP pages can be stored in the Google AMP Cache.
Google will cache your AMP HTML pages on their server. The cached pages on Google’s servers are actually what is served to users rather than your own URL.
It loads the page directly from the cache and ensures consistently faster speeds. The JavaScript and the media are being delivered from a single source.
CDN was build-up to distribute your static content to the users from the nearest physical data center. CDN also lowers down bandwidth usage and a CDN is served from different servers and the nearest one is used.
The AMP Cache also provides a validation system that validates the AMP pages and ensures perfect performance.
Benefits of Google AMP on SEO –
Speed is the main attraction of AMP. The improved speed adds engagement and lower bounce rates across the board.
AMP is useful in low-mobile Internet coverage areas. AMP will load faster your content and can improve publisher and reader relationships. High speed of content will translate into more page views and lesser frustrated readers.
# Higher Rank in SERPs – AMP content will always rank at the top of the SERPs. AMP-enabled content has an icon in the SERPs suggesting that they are built on AMP.
AMPs are valuable for improving visibility in Google search if your website is well-structured and consistently delivers good performance.
It rises with a reason that building webpages to a mobile standard would help your website rank better in Google SERPs.
You need to get your pages prepared for fast mobile load times and user-friendliness is sure to improve website performance.
# Page Speed – Page speed becomes a ranking factor for mobile pages and AMP is to satisfy your website’s needs for speed. AMP promises to make mobile browsing up to 90% faster.
It’s a combination of optimizations and restrictions for HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to load pages instantly. PageSpeed also improves the above-the-fold prioritization, specific AMP caches, and pre-rendering.
The use of small media files and few resource requests from the server adds further speed improvements. Getting pages to load within 5 seconds seems to have the most positive impact on user engagement and conversion.
# Boost to SEO – Google AMP’s most visible benefit is boosting speed. Page speed is an important factor in the page’s rankings in SERPs which makes a website more visible.
When a website implements AMP, you can see an increase in page speed, page visits, stay time and a reduction in bounce rates.
Google AMP will ensure that your website’s pages show up in the Google News carousel which is prioritized in the above-the-fold placement on mobile searches.
Google’s algorithm started prioritizing mobile-optimized pages and implementation of AMP could improve your website’s SEO.
AMP-enabled pages have a lightning icon which helps them stand out from the other results displayed.
# Improve User-Experience – Google AMP makes it easy to create user-friendly mobile webpages to avoid the downside. AMP significantly improves the user experience for mobile visitors even with slow Internet connections.
It makes your content lean and fast. Your visitors won’t have to wait for your website to load. It’s estimated that one-third of all potential sales fail when a website is not optimized for mobile devices.
Half of the Internet users wouldn’t recommend a business with a poorly-designed mobile website. AMP gives your customers a better experience when they are consuming your content.
Leveraging AMP is a great way to make sure that your content gets to the top of the SERPs. It gives customers a positive experience when dealing with your brand.
# Enhanced Server Performance – Google AMP reduces the bandwidth usage for images without affecting image quality and increases server-side rendering.
AMP will help to improve the website’s performance by reducing the load on your server.
The high-speed is achieved through the AMP Content Delivery Network. The AMP content is saved locally at different server locations for this purpose.
# Lower Bounce Rate – The loading time is one of the biggest factors contributing to the bounce rate. You need more than great content for a successful blog. You need an optimized page that improves a reader’s overall experience.
When page loads immediately then users are less likely to abandon the page. Users will explore your website further and click on other links within it.
Limitations of Google AMP –
AMP HTML is designed to improve website performance and reduce loading times. It means that the page code is stripped down and results in some visual limitations.
Images will be loaded with lazy load function and only load when they appear in the view.
# CSS and JavaScript Limitations – AMPs contain very little in the way of branding and individuality. The loading time suffers greatly when web designers use JavaScript and CSS.
AMP will remove high-definition graphics, complex animations and flashy elements that use CSS and JavaScript. Google AMP helps to achieve lightning-fast loading times.
AMP uses a limited set of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS and you may not be able to add certain features and widgets to your content. AMP could prevent you from adding call-to-action, share buttons, and other dynamic scripts.
# Cached Pages – AMP makes pages load so fast because it allows Google to serve a cached version of an AMP-enabled page to users. Google AMP displays the cached versions of your webpages.
Your users can’t always have access to the latest version of your content. It’s only a copy cached and stored elsewhere.
# Ad Revenue Restriction – Many websites rely on ads to generate revenue. Google AMP has limited integration potential with external ad platforms.
Google AMP supports the ads but the implementation is complicated. It can limit opportunities for advertising on your website. While ads are allowed in AMP content and adding them is more difficult than on a normal page.
# Tracking Problems – AMP might not work with your existing implemented tracking. They are stored and tracked differently than standard pages. Tracking takes special effort and resources which may not be immediately available.
# Limited Functionality – You may not be able to offer all of the functionality of your regular website due to AMP implementation guidelines.
It’s limiting to the functional-rich website such as e-commerce websites and it’s not recommended to use AMP in that case.
PWA (Progressive Web App) –
Progressive Web App is a mobile web app delivered via the web and it behaves like a native app. But PWA doesn’t need to be downloaded.
PWAs are designed to look and work like native mobile apps. Users encounter them in a browser when they open any mobile website. The user is prompted to install the web app on their device after engaging with the website.
PWAs operate inside the web browser and it loads instantly without high Internet speed.
PWAs use pre-caching to keep the app stay updated and users get only the updated version. You can rely on a PWA to create a dynamic but slower user-experience.
Pros and Cons of Google AMP –
The greatest advantage of AMP is that the AMP website load faster and enables a positive user experience. The website with AMP obtains significantly lower failure rates and more conversions in online shops.
AMP pages can be maintained relatively easily when plugins are used.
Pros –
- AMP is open-source
- Increased visibility for Publishers
- You might see as SEO advantages as speed is a ranking factor in SERPs by loading pages faster
- Faster loading page for mobile users
- It’s a Google’s projects and AMP HTML pages will be its own ranking factor as well
- Improved search engine ranking
- Support for Ads
- AMP visitor analytics
Cons –
AMP doesn’t usually have the complete functionality of conversational websites. The local location for data management will, therefore, see AMP as a disadvantage.
The higher dependency on Google connected with this technology.
- Limited support for Ad networks
- Supports only limited instruction set
- AMP implementation can be difficult if you’re not a developer
- Supports only AMP JS functions which means your own 3rd party JS might not be supported
Conclusion – Google is only looking at mobile-friendly websites when defining its ranking. Google AMP is one of the ways of constructing and displaying content faster. A few extra seconds of loading time could reduce the website’s SERPs ranking. Google AMP can ensure the website’s pages load at lightning speed on mobile devices. AMP pages are positioned even above the mobile SERPs. The implementation isn’t much difficult and results are remarkable in terms of position, traffic, and conversions.