Do you like the slow-loading websites on your screen? Slow like a sloth. No way. Everyone loves to have the best speedy experience when they are on the internet. Similarly, as a website owner, you don’t want to be late to the screen of your audience.
Now what are the techniques to appear as fast as you can on your audience screen? Well, Google AMP, the web framework, makes the task easy for both website owners and website users. It makes the web loading fast.
Well, Google AMP started its journey in 2015. Is it still relevant in 2023? Is it still on trend? To get this answer and an overview of Google AMP and its future applications. Don’t go anywhere, stick to this read.
What is Google AMP?
It is an open-source web framework from Google to make your website super fast on the user screen. Simply, you can take the web features or components from the Google AMP, to make your first-user page.
Well, what does AMP stand for? It is the Accelerated Mobile Pages. So, the AMP confirms to the users that the website they are trying to load is mobile-optimized. So, from 2016, this open-source Google framework was available to users. Does AMP only prepare the websites?
There are four types of AMP- Stories, Emails, Ads, and finally websites. Initially, Google used to favor those web pages that had the AMP. But later on, this trend faded away. There are many other web frameworks now that the users are using. Like- Prism, Volt, Swiper Slide, etc.
However, Google AMP was not so acceptable to website owners or publishers. They were somehow bound to use the AMP. So that your web pages can rank and load fastly on the user’s screen. But ultimately it did no good to the websites.
AMP For The Publishers
How do the publishers use the AMP? At first, they made the AMP page concerning the Google Guidelines. Then they make the AMP URL and place the content on the web pages. They make sure that the web pages are following two things.
They are Prerendering and website design. These two things need to be carefully handled by the publishers to integrate the AMP pages.
Web Design: The CSS has to be limited to 75 KB and JavaScript has to be in the 150 KB. Pre-rendering: Before the visitors click, the Google AMP webpage will have all the resources loaded.
So, they can immediately show the results to the intended visitors. Even the publishers can make the AMP pages with the help of CMS. The publishers need to check that the AMP is easily discovered by search engines. A publisher can also decide how to represent the AMP content.
It can be any of the two options- Signed exchange: You can include the direct URL of your website. Google AMP viewer: Has the Google URL at first and then your domain name. In both cases, the user will understand who the website publishers are. So, no worries.
How Does AMP Work?
Now that we know how the AMP plays the role of users and publishers. Let’s learn what’s the workflow of AMP to make the web pages faster.
- Using the asynchronous Javascript carefully: AMP wants to load the web pages on time just like hitting a light switch. In the case of web page development, JavaScript plays a great role. But it can sometimes delay the pages and hinder the DOM construction. So, to avoid delayed page rendering, AMP promotes asynchronous JavaScript. To avoid block rendering, the JavaScripts are designed well-mannered. Two types of JavaScript- Custom and third-party JS are integrated into the iframe. Hence, the block rendering is solved with AMP.
- Managing the external resources: Any resource of any size is handled in a row in the AMP. It can load external resources or web layouts without downloading the resources. The AMP wants external resources like ads, images, and iframes to declare their size in the HTML so that the AMP can detect their size, and level/position without downloading them. No need for the re-layout. With one HTPP request AMP layouts the doc file. But no need to re-layout the resource file. All resources are loaded earlier.
- Easy with the Extensions: AMP can allow the extensions of social media, pop-ups, and lightboxes without blocking the page rendering. With the help of HTTP requests for additional staff, AMP can load the extensions easily. But the extra extensions don’t block the page layout and rendering.
- Keeping the third-party JS within the iframes: With the synchronous JS loading, the loading time of the page will just increase. But AMP confines the third-party JS within the iframes so there are no recalculations of the layouts and pages. The DOM of the iframe does the all within the fastest time.
- The practice of CSS within the web page: The CSS is used in the webpages’ inline style and needs to be size-specific. Because the CSS can block the loading of pages and render. So, the AMP has a 50 KB inline style sheet. You can put the CSS here. With the inline style of CSS, the amount of HTTP requests is just reduced which makes the pages faster loading.
- Fewer Recalculations: With AMP all the page content, and style will be recalculated for once. Because DOM reads happen prior to all writing on the page. So, there is no redo of the styles in the AMP pages. It saves the expense and page loading time.
- Optimizing the fonts: AMP doesn’t give HTTP requests again and again to load the larger texts. It optimizes downloading of the texts because it has asynchronous JS in the system and an inline style. These two eliminate the HTTP requests. Ultimately no extra time to download the fonts.
- Loading the animations: The AMP allows the loading of the animations and objects on the GPU. Without the GPU, you can’t optimize them at a fast pace. However, the GPU can handle the layers but can’t update them. The CSS animation rule in AMP makes the GPU accelerated.
- Loading the resources: AMP allows the resources to be loaded at the fastest type and trend. The trend is to prioritize resource loading. Which resources are most needed, will load faster. Then which resource is not of no use to the users, that will load later means AMP will prefetch the heavy resources within no time but load them later.
- Final Web Page: AMP tries to combine the two things to deliver the fastest and most instant loading page. How does this happen? AMP pre-renders the documents, it takes the resources that are already downloaded. But the resources which are heavy on the CPU will not be downloaded. Here the preconnected API is used. AMP will not download the third-party iframe to load the page instantly.
Pros And Cons of AMP
Pros
Search optimization: By using the AMP, one web page will rank on the first page of Google. It is because of search optimization.
More Traffic: With the help of the AMP, as your page ranks higher in Google, you will get more of the intended traffic.
Increase in ROI: When the ads are organized and they are shown on time, the ROI will increase.
Less Bounce Rate: The AMP reduces the HTTP requests which makes the pages load instantly. When the traffic sees that the content is taking time to load, they will immediately leave the page. So, with AMP, the bounce rate is reduced.
Cons
Widget and Features are less: In AMP, you will only find the CSS, JS, and HTML in a row. Moreover, the number of widgets is limited on the mobile pages.
Only supported By WP: The AMP is not very easygoing for non-coders. But the WP plugin allows the non-coders to plugin the AMP and manage it. But on the other CMS, the users need to learn coding to build the AMP.
Video Content is Slow: In AMP, the video content loads slowly. The video will render at their own speed.
Less analytical support: The AMP supports the analytical results only for the WP users.
How is AMP in 2023?
I think the use of AMP is not active now. There are several other approaches to make your websites faster. Now the Google algorithms are set in a way that every page can rank higher. Again the AMP is not an SEO ranking factor. But it places the web pages that are fast loading due to AMP integration.
However, in 2021, Google launched its new approach which is the Core Web Vitals. This Core Web Vitals is more precise in its work. It ranks mobile web pages according to their speed and performance.
So, this has a set of metrics that you have to match. If you can make 75 percentiles in the entire metrics then your webpage will be able to cross the web vital screening of Google. So, now the trend of AMP is outdated.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are AMPS essential for Mobile SEO?
Not necessarily. Of course, when you have a mobile web page, you would want that to rank in SEO. For this, you need to make a clear strategy for the content and keywords. But AMP is not the main reason for mobile SEO. It is one of the helping tools to make mobile pages faster and help in SEO.
How to implement AMPs on WordPress?
First, choose the right WP plugin. Then replace the HTML tags with AMP tags. Make the AMP functionality a balanced one with WP. Edit the plugin to meet your needs. Then AMP projects are only on the local environment, design the AMP pages, check the privacy challenge, and finally validate the AMP.
What are the limitations of Google AMP?
The biggest limitation is that Google AMP uses Google. Com is the URL means in the cached page instead of the publisher’s domain name. So, the cached pages are not in the control of the publishers. They find it hard to edit the content and also hard to keep on track of how traffic is landing on their mobile pages.
What are the alternatives to Google AMP?
The alternatives to Google AMP are now the Facebook Instant article, teddit, Google Lighthouse, DuckDuckGo, W3, etc. The Google Lighthouse is open source to make quality webpages. Facebook Instant article makes the interactive Facebook article. On the other hand, the W3C markup validates the HTML markup sites of web pages at the time. Finally, the DuckDuck Go helps to have a secure webpage and privacy of the publisher regarding their content and online information.
Wrap-Up
The trend of using Google AMP is not the hype in 2023. Because it makes the pages mobile-friendly and faster. Not that it has a role in SEO ranking. Rather than that Google now has its algorithm for page ranking. Moreover, the webpages are now way more efficient. But yes, people can still use Google AMP if they want.