amp - Blog - Automotive Internet Sales - BDC - Free Training Resources2024-03-29T00:20:02Zhttps://automotiveinternetsales.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/ampGoogle opens the AMP fire hose - Re-Post from Search Engine Landhttps://automotiveinternetsales.com/profiles/blogs/google-opens-the-amp-fire-hose-re-post-from-search-engine-land2016-10-04T07:56:38.000Z2016-10-04T07:56:38.000ZSean V. Bradleyhttps://automotiveinternetsales.com/members/SeanVBradley<div><p class="p1"></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1475241?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1475241?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"></a></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align: center;"><strong><span class="s1">Google opens the AMP fire hose</span></strong></p>
<p class="p2" style="text-align: center;"><strong><span class="s1">Columnist Barb Palser believes that the broad surfacing of AMP content in mobile search will expose a universe of AMP content that’s been hidden from view.</span></strong></p>
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<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Google’s expansion of <a href="http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-amp-project"><span class="s1">Accelerated Mobile Pages</span></a> across mobile search results is underway, gradually turning the trickle of AMP traffic to a steady flow.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The September start of the “blue links” rollout, along with announcements from some high-profile participants in the AMP Project, are advancing the open-source initiative on multiple fronts.</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">Google’s AMP expansion</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Since Accelerated Mobile Pages <a href="http://searchengineland.com/amp-top-stories-now-live-243314"><span class="s1">first appeared in Google search results</span></a> in February 2016, AMPs have been mostly concentrated in the Top Stories area of mobile search results:</span></p>
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<p class="p4"><span class="s1">AMP Top Stories carousel in Google mobile search results</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The current expansion, which was <a href="http://searchengineland.com/amp-breaks-news-main-google-search-results-254965"><span class="s1">announced in August</span></a> and <a href="http://searchengineland.com/amp-live-in-google-259109"><span class="s1">started in mid-September</span></a>, will surface AMPs throughout standard mobile search results, aka “blue links.” When the phased blue links rollout is complete, Google will <i>always</i> present the validated AMP version of a page to mobile users instead of the standard web link.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">At this stage, Google is only surfacing a portion of available AMPs; a September 25 query returned a mixture of AMP and non-AMP results in the blue links area. When the expansion is complete, all available AMPs will be displayed.</span></p>
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<p class="p4"><span class="s1">AMP blue links</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Along with the blue links rollout, Google made slight modifications to its <a href="http://searchengineland.com/googles-amp-viewer-tinder-ux-content-258486"><span class="s1">AMP viewer</span></a>. The user interface is now grey instead of blue and employs an “X” button instead of a back arrow to close the viewer and return to search results.</span></p>
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<p class="p4"><span class="s1">Redesigned AMP viewer</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">Broader, deeper AMP exposure</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">For news publishers, the blue links expansion will surface evergreen and long-tail content that wouldn’t have been eligible for the Top Stories area but accounts for a large portion of search traffic.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">It also opens AMP exposure to commercial, vertical and non-news publishers. Essentially, any AMP-enabled content that would normally surface in search will be presented to users.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">A diverse group of non-news publishers timed their own announcements to Google’s blue links rollout. On September 20, <a href="https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/experience-the-lightning-bolt/"><span class="s1">eBay announced</span></a> that its AMP-enabled product pages were live after a few months of <a href="http://searchengineland.com/ebay-goes-amp-sign-might-break-past-news-253254"><span class="s1">development work</span></a> to resolve some feature gaps.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">On the same day, <a href="https://engineering.shopify.com/225104708-shopify-merchants-will-soon-get-ampd"><span class="s1">Shopify announced</span></a> plans to AMP-enable its merchants and <a href="https://redditblog.com/2016/09/20/a-faster-reddit-with-accelerated-mobile-pages/"><span class="s1">Reddit announced</span></a> the launch of tens of millions of AMP pages on its platform. These companies join Fandango, Food Network and other non-news publishers on AMP. There’s plenty of content to fill the fire hose.</span></p>
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<p class="p4"><span class="s1">Non-news AMPs: eBay product page and Food Network recipe.</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">AMP benefits in Google search</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><a href="http://searchengineland.com/google-amp-not-yet-a-search-ranking-signal-243498">Google has stated</a></span> <span class="s1">repeatedly that AMP is not a ranking factor (at least not yet), but that doesn’t mean AMP content won’t get special treatment.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Most noticeably, Google has been building user experiences to showcase AMPs above standard search results. The “Top Stories” carousel was the first example — and now Google is working on a “<a href="https://developers.google.com/search/pilot/open/live-coverage"><span class="s1">Live Coverage</span></a>” AMP carousel for breaking news, elections, sports and other real-time events.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">These modules dominate the top of the mobile viewport, above standard results where non-AMP links appear. It’s easy to imagine a variety of special AMP-based user experiences for all types of informational and commercial content.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">In addition, Google has signaled that load time <i>in general</i> will matter in its ranking algorithm going forward — and has contributed to the growing mountain of research establishing load time as a predictor of user satisfaction and engagement. With Google’s data showing an <a href="https://www.doubleclickbygoogle.com/articles/mobile-speed-matters/"><span class="s1">average mobile page load time of 19 seconds and a 53-percent abandonment rate after three seconds of waiting</span></a>, lightning-fast AMPs should ace any speed-related SEO tests.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Finally, users could begin to reward AMP publishers by favoring AMPs in search results. If users begin to recognize the AMP icon and associate it with a fast page, they may start choosing AMP links (or avoiding non-AMP links) in search results for certain types of content and queries.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Over time, such preferences could manifest in changes to search performance. (In early September, Google was observed <a href="https://www.seroundtable.com/google-testing-darker-amp-logo-22665.html"><span class="s1">testing a darker, more noticeable AMP icon</span></a>.)</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Combined, all of these factors could provide advantages to AMP-enabled publishers over non-AMPed publishers, even if the ranking algorithm for general Google search results doesn’t explicitly favor AMP.</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">AMP beyond Google</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Apart from Google’s use of AMP, new participants are bringing the broader potential of the open-source AMP Project into view.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The eBay and Reddit announcements cited speed and performance as primary reasons for adopting AMP — and opened the door to future AMP-only strategies.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Excerpt from <a href="https://redditblog.com/2016/09/20/a-faster-reddit-with-accelerated-mobile-pages/"><span class="s1">Reddit’s blog post</span></a> (emphasis added):</span></p>
<p class="p5"><span class="s1"><b><i>AMP pages look great and load fast on desktop just like they do on mobile.</i></b> <i>Maintaining good performance to pages as they change often amounts to a time consuming game of Whac[k]-A-Mole but we can be confident our AMP pages will always be fast. So,</i> <b><i>for many kinds of pages, we think the AMP version is the only version we’ll ever need.</i></b></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Excerpt from <a href="https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/experience-the-lightning-bolt/"><span class="s1">eBay’s blog post</span></a> (emphasis added):</span></p>
<p class="p5"><span class="s1"><i>Although both of them [AMP and non-AMP browse pages] are highly optimized, look the same, and share most of the code, updating both versions is still a maintenance overhead. In addition, we always need to watch out for feature parity.</i> <b><i>In the future, based on how AMP pages are performing, we may choose to have one mobile version (AMP) and serve it to all platforms.</i></b></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The expansion of AMP to desktop experiences and the potential for AMP to replace standard web pages have been anticipated by the AMP Project from the start — but these are among the first large publishers to talk publicly about it.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">A few days later, <a href="http://blogs.bing.com/search/September-2016/bing-app-joins-the-amp-open-source-effort"><span class="s1">Bing announced</span></a> AMP support in its search app for iOS and Android in order to provide a better, more consistent user experience. Like Google, Bing will link to the AMP version of a page when available.</span></p>
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<p class="p4"><span class="s1">AMP results in Bing Search app</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">This is something any search engine, social platform or other referrer could do — every standard web page with an AMP counterpart has a header tag pointing to the AMP version. Social news aggregator <a href="http://blog.nuzzel.com/post/130684348335/nuzzel-now-supports-amp"><span class="s1">Nuzzel has been linking to AMPs</span></a> for some time, and Twitter has taken <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/2016/explore-links-in-moments-1"><span class="s1">initial steps</span></a> to link to AMP in certain contexts.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Google’s promotion of AMP across its products is generating awareness, providing incentives for publisher adoption and driving feature development and innovation.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">At the same time, the involvement of diverse participants and non-Google-dependent use cases will be critical to AMP’s long-term success and its mission to improve performance across the mobile web — not just a corner of it. The AMP format was seeded in Google’s environment but was never meant to stay there.</span></p>
<p class="p1">Source: http://searchengineland.com/google-opens-amp-firehose-259569?utm_source=marketo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_content=scap&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTURJeU0yUm1NV00wTm1RMiIsInQiOiI2aUtEVXVQWWZHTEtkQkZIODNKR3ZzZDVrRkE1MDUxWUpyMGFtTW14MDEzVGxBSXNHYzA0QXp5TFRyVjFMQ1pxSXpZQzFLKzBuek1BZU5iMnZhNmdhNnV1cmdBRFlyc0FOMXgwZ3pDXC94Mkk9In0%3D </p></div>