Google Announces Accelerated Mobile Pages for Faster, Open Mobile Web

[engine]

At Pubcon Las Vegas today, Google announced a new open framework for the mobile web. APM (Accelerated Mobile Web) is devised to speed content delivery to mobile devices with AMP HTML for the production of light-weight web pages.

Google went on to say,

Over time we anticipate that other Google products such as Google News will also integrate AMP HTML pages. And today we’re announcing that nearly 30 publishers from around the world are taking part too.Google Announces Accelerated Mobile Pages for Faster, Open Mobile Web [insidesearch.blogspot.com]

[ampproject.org...]

[superclown2]

If the sites look like their website most people won't be able to read them.

[RedBar]

That second page is diabolical.

[Wilburforce]

If that is what Instant Everywhere is like I will stick with what I do already, which loads more than five times faster.

[RedBar]

Here's a better explanation of what's happening:

[bbc.co.uk...]

[Robert Charlton]

RedBar, thanks for the BBC link. That article includes a link to....

View an AMP edition of this article

...which is clearly a version of the article stripped down for responsive display on smart phones.

I've been posting for years that the major problem with news pages has been the slow and erratic loading of ads, primarily rich media ads, and it's surprising that publishers and ad networks haven't addressed that issue on their own.

I hope this framework proves to be effective, because the alternative is likely to be many paywalls, at least on the big sites that can afford to take that chance... or which are forced to paywalls because they can no longer sell ads.

[engine]

If this really does what it's meant to do it should mean less demand for ad blockers, although, it's not just page speed that is the issue there: Obtrusive advertising is a bigger issue, imho.
If publishers addressed the type of ads that load it would be fixed without this.

I'd add, i welcome this initiative as anything that improves page loading, especially on mobile, is a good move.

[Leosghost]

Interesting that it includes Pinterest..because that means Google will be technically hosting the human scraped content that Pinterest is based around..Will that make Google liable for copyright infringements by Pinterest ?..
AFAIK at the moment Pinterest does not run 3rd party ads..
What are the chances that Google will at some time in the relatively near future supply Pinterest with a form of adsense ( which would get through the "adblockers" )..at the moment Pinterest pages show in the results of Google search, but if one clicks through to Pinterest, one has to "sign in" to view the pages..( which would appear to be against Google's "no cloaking" rule ) ..So..in order to see if one's images are being used without permission by Pinterest, one has to sign up to Pinterest..

If Pinterest runs Google ads of any kind..I foresee a day when the "sign in procedure" will say something like "by signing in, one agrees that all of ones material , images etc , in Pinterest, can be used by Pinterest"..even if one has not put it there oneself..

Catch 22..for image producers..

( to know if they were stealing your images, you'd have to agree that all your stuff could , including your images, be used for free )

Google and Pinterest share some of the same "backers"..

Pinterest ( even with some scripts "thinned down" ) still uses a lot of bandwidth..If Google are distributing it, that will cost..a lot..

Google will not be doing so for free, Pinterest could continue to serve their own pages, the images are not blocked by adblockers, they only require javascript to be authorised to view them..what else uses javascript, and requires that it be authorised..?

Ah yes..Google's adsense system..

I can't see Google buying Pinterest..they'd love all that human scraped imagery..but it would be bad PR..

But I can see Alphabet doing so..and saying that it is not Google really, and that Pinterest pages would not get favourable treatment in SERPs..and saying it with a straight face too..

This is a "land grab" by Google and the other companies and organisations including the BBC, all of them were involved in heavy lobbying in Europe for dilution of the image copyrights of individuals, they have been pushing very heavily to be able to use images that they "find" on the web and not pay anything for if they cannot find the image owner..But many of them automatically strip out the meta data when they use an image , thus rendering it impossible to keep the part which tells them and anyone else who is the owner.. Then they tried to get themselves jointly declared to be a register of images..and independent image makers would have to "sign up"or "register" with the "authority" in order to get paid when their images were used..don't sign..don't get paid, but your image is considered "orphaned" and gets used by them for free, do sign up, your image is registered, but get paid a pittance ( amount decided by them as "the authority" ) by them for it's use..

This initiative would mean that your images get pillaged..and re-used at high speed via Google's fast accelerated mobile pages system and their partner companies and organisations..with Google ads ( and those of the other big ad networks wrapped around them )..But your pages, with your images ( and maybe ads ) will be slower, and as Google's SERPs favour faster, your SERPs position will fall and fall..and your pages won't be seen..meanwhile the big boys will be using your imagery..wrapped around their "non adblocked" ads ..for free

[graeme_p]

@Leosghost, content you have to sign in to see is not considered cloaking. There is even an option somewhere in Webmaster tools to give Googlebot a login.

[Leosghost]

Content that you have to sign in to see..but which is linked to from SERPs as if "what you click is what you'll get to" is , in my view, ( and in the minds of all of us who were on the web before Google ) "cloaking" ..That Google have redefined the word via "googlespeak" ( as they have many other words ) .."bait and switch" is still bait and switch, even when Googlespeak says it isn't..so that they can crawl what is hidden from visitors..I seem to remember Google saying on multiple occasions that it was bad user experience to hide content behind registration..But they always did give Pinterest "a pass" when it comes to misrepresention..

Case in point..I have many EMDs..I have many that are single pages..some of them I made Pinterest accounts for ( to block anyone else using the domain names there )..One of them in particular is a 6 letter word.com..One page of content..I made it a Pinterest account, which has no content at all..When you search for the word..the Pinterest account ( which is totally devoid of content ) ranks higher than the actual domain..Purely because Google and Pinterest share backers..and so Google "boosts" Pinterest in SERPs..

Another "view" of the Google AMP announcement..
[theregister.co.uk...]

I would recommend reading the comment from "thames" about three quarters of the way down this page..where "thames" gives the detailed figures for what is happening ( data used and "calls" made" by the browser ) when one views the first page of the article..the page I linked to above..
[forums.theregister.co.uk...]

That is precisely where the problem is..There was a time when sites had content and ads which loaded fast and didn't annoy the users, or pose security risks, or track users from site to site ..

But that was before all the tracking crap that the ad networks now include..

Google and their pals have made the problem..

And now they are saying the solution is to have them running a white-listed ( by the adblockers ) walled garden content delivery network, for them and their content and image scraping friends, so that their ads and tracking can still get through..

Meanwhile sites which are not in AMP ( but whose content has been scraped to fill the sites who are in AMP ) will be seen as slower, and assessed by Google's algos as slower..and ranked further down SERPs..where they will slide still further as Google's friends get the "Google super fast highway just for our friends boost"..or maybe Google will offer to host all of us, for free..as long as we let them monetise all of our content, and place their unstoppable, unblockable, alternative replacement for adsense around it..Is becoming a digital share-cropper the future for independent webmasters, or will the "Google's super fast highway for our friends" just push independent webmasters aside, while taking their content to show the end users..

Yes ..their example pages and "example" landing pages look like crap..and are very user unfriendly in so many ways that the list would be long..But I don't think that the user friendliness nor the look was uppermost in their minds..pushing the ads as fast as possible down a fat exclusive tube for them and their friends was what was and is first and foremost in their minds..

They pay but lip service to the concept of think of the users..they now have the mindshare..the users are as cattle with mesmerised eyeballs to be sold or rented to the advertisers..or the ad agencies who are handling their "online ad spend/ budgets"..

[tangor]

And I think of that other third party, the provider, who does have fixed, if rather large, limits on their expense of operation. Heck , that was what "net neutrality" was all about. :)

Could it be this new method might be a way to deal with a potential revolt from that quarter?

[blend27]

Could it be this new method might be a way to deal with a potential revolt from that quarter?

Heck, G has been coming up/out/up-n-down with updates every end of the year holidays shopping season since 03/04, well since Florida. What does not work gets written off by announcing next Big Algo update sometimes end of Feb/March, then we have 1st of April and 10% less SMBs on 1st 3 pages of SERP than last quarter in E-COM.

AngelFire/Geocities >> Wikipedia>> WikiHow/+++Blog looking like anything(including whatever G bought as a blog platform + anything that had WMT code on it) and MFA's+++>>Ebay + Domain Crowding >> Amazon/Ebay/Etsy/FaceBook/Pinterest/Linkedin/Overstock + Domain Crowding on most E-COM searches....



They never missed a bit on their Quarterly Income Report, or did they?

I started blocking images from Pinterest on one of my sites. A few weeks later G started showing same images(Image Search) but under Pinterest domain, that was a while back.

[Nutterum]

Am I the only one who sees this as a way to circumvent the dramatic growth of mobile ad-blocking apps? Granted, your articles will load faster, but let's cut to the chase. Google will implement ads that are "within" the article thus rendering all ad-blocking services obsolete. Like load everything including ads, or block everything type of deal.

[EditorialGuy]

Am I the only one who sees this as a way to circumvent the dramatic growth of mobile ad-blocking apps?

I think it's more about keeping mobile users happy with the Web, so they won't use apps instead.

[graeme_p]

@Leoghost given that you used the word cloaking in the context of Google's rules, then their definition is the relevant one.

And now they are saying the solution is to have them running a white-listed ( by the adblockers ) walled garden content delivery network

No, AMP is a standard, and anyone can use it. Google have offered a free cache, but no one has to use it.

The big problems with AMP are relate to the process of getting components into it. Firstly it means that you have to sign a Google CLA, which gives Google a special position.

The other problem is that it favour vendors who have a component included in AMP an advantage over those who do not. So it is easy to embed a Youtube video on an AMP page (because it is a standard component) but more work to embed a Vimeo video. It is also not clear what effects this will have on Google SERPS. Will AMP pages be treated more favourably than non-AMP pages that load equally fast? If so, will Google validate AMP pages and penalise those that are not valid? What about those that are not valid but use a non-standard component? Can a page be valid if it uses a non-standard component? Do you have to use their CDN?

In fact, the problem is not with the technology, but whether or not it affects the Google SERPS.

I is also nothing like restrictive enough - but that is because, with Google driving it, they do not want restrictions that will affect ads.

[blend27]

How does this scale against BootStrap4, developer-time-wise?

Do we need another "Framework", just cause GOOG thinks so?