Date First Published: 29th October 2023
Topic: Web Design & Development
Subtopic: SEO
Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions
Difficulty: MediumDifficulty Level: 6/10
Learn about what Google AMP is in this article.
Stands for Google Accelerated Mobile Pages. AMP is an open-source project designed to improve the loading time of webpages for mobile devices. It was created by Google and is in competition with Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News. Google first served AMP pages in mobile search results in 2016, which were limited to a 'Top Stories' section at the top of the SERPs and only designed for news publishers, but has expanded to include all types of webpages.
The AMP project aims to 'build the future web together' by allowing webpages and ads that are consistently fast, beautiful and high-performing across devices, and distribution platforms to be created. As of now, over 1.5 billion AMP pages have been created.
AMP works by enabling lightweight pages that load more quickly for mobile users. They do not contain any of the features that usually slow down webpages and the video, audio and iframe are replaced by AMP-specific tags. Some tags that work for normal webpage code cannot be used for AMP. According to Google, AMP pages served in Google Search used a tenth of the data of standard pages and loaded in less than a second. As more people use mobile devices for browsing websites, that capability has become more important.
Although AMP is a useful feature for mobile devices and can reduce visitor frustration due to long waiting times, it does come with some limitations. AMP pages have limited functionality. For example, it is not possible to display email popups, opt-in forms, sidebar widgets, and social share buttons on AMP pages, which could result in visitors missing out on important information and a loss of subscribers and leads.
In addition, AMP pages are loaded from Google's cache server, which is controlled by Google. If the servers experienced any technical issues, users would be unable to access the AMP page. This means that users are entirely reliant on Google for AMP pages.
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