Google Says AMP Pages Must Have Close Content Parity or Receive Manual Action Message

[engine]

Google has said from February 1, 2018, AMP pages must have close content parity to comparable to the original canonical page content. Clearly, people are using AMP pages as a leader to the main content, and perhaps even making AMP pages act as an optimized landing pages.

However, in some cases the content on the AMP page does not match the content on its original (canonical) page.

In a small number of cases, AMP pages are used as teaser pages which create a particularly bad user experience since they only contain minimal content. In these instances, users have to click twice to get to the real content.

Google says that if it finds AMP pages that do not contain the same content it'll direct users to the non-AMP page, and the page will not appear in the Top Stories Carousel showing AMP pages.

It'll also give a manual action warning in the Search Console which will require addressing before the AMP page can be shown again.

[webmasters.googleblog.com...]

[explorador]

Bad implementation IMHO. There have been times where I've been searching for information on the smartphone only to see "results" and then browse into the pages having nothing of what was previously displayed (nothing or quite nothing), useless I mean.

[engine]

Yes, i've found that, too.
The AMP pages are being used as honed landing pages.
I think this could be the reason for Google's "clarification"

The trouble is that AMP pages are meant to be cut down, and not spammy, but, if you're like me, you want the full fat page in any case, not a thin page.

[explorador]

It was supposed to be about preloaded content to increase speed, or at least to give that impression. Instead they opened the door to that old ghost of cloaking: seeing diff content on diff devices.

[engine]

Yes, preloaded from Google's servers, too.

I still don't see the real need for AMP, except in certain situations. I know it was aimed at mobile, but, come on, the vast majority of people have very good connections on mobile, and have adequate allowances for full-fat pages.

Now, publishers will have to ensure page matching and avoid abuse of the system. The next line we're not yet at is how close to original.

[NickMNS]

I still don't see the real need for AMP, except in certain situations

AMP is very powerful and has many benefits. I am using it in conjunction with PWA. It allow the entry page into the PWA to be pre-chached but also allows the PWA's service worker and app to be pre-loaded from the cache. So if the user decides to interact with the page there is no latency. So as you can see AMP is a small part but important part of that puzzle. I agree AMP may not be needed in many situations but fully embracing the technology and using it to its full potential has benefits that are not easily achievable in any other way.

[tangor]

Axing Bait and Switch publishing, which I agree with, AMP has a reason and purpose, of course. Webmasters should play the game. Or not. Users will trump all, after all, that is the audience desired.

[penitentman]

I was experimenting with AMP on a new Affiliate site I launched at the end of last year. It had about 1000 pages of thin content but I was going to get around to adding unique content later on to each page... I ran a test through here [search.google.com...] and maybe conducted a search console report. Somehow communication started between me and google. Then I was wacked with a spam problem manual action.

"Revise any duplicate or thin content on your site. Look for any content on your site that might have been scraped directly from another source or provides little value. Create revised content that is original and relevant to your site." blah blah.

So be warned that any AMP testing and communication with Google about AMP can get them looking at your site and possibly alert the spam team. Or however the process goes. It's not a coincidence this particular site got manually reviewed out of the clear blue. I should have known better but I did specifically choose this new site as opposed to my money sites incase some kind of issue overlapped departments at Google.

[SarbjitGrewal]

I would love to use AMP for my website and blogs but the main issue is thin content. I want that user can load all of the pages with full content instead of just serving them text version of the web page.

[Andova Begarin]

Though new to the "AMP user experience" I do not see it as anything more that Google yet again trying to host/grab/index user web content.

For example, if your website hosts CSS, JavaScript or Fonts at a Google URL, Google then is aware (knows about) all your website's users. (Most of whom have cookies enabled for their many social networking sites that they "belong to".)

What happens is that a User visits your website and they visit each website where you host your other files.

I point this out only for those who care about their User's privacy.