Who has never given up visiting a website because it took so long to load? If this was already common when we only accessed the internet via computer, with the popularization of smartphones, this impatience is increasing.
With users demanding more agility from pages, technology giants are always looking for solutions to improve the customer experience. One of the solutions was AMP, an acronym for the English expression Accelerated Mobile Pages.
For those who are website administrators or content creators in an increasingly competitive environment, it is important to have a competitive edge. In addition to increasing visitors, AMP helps your website gain positions in search engine rankings, especially Google.
In this post, we will better understand what AMP is, how the technology works on the PC, and what the relationship is between Accelerated Mobile Pages and Facebook Instant Articles. Afterward, the article shows how to configure the system on a website, how the user can validate AMP-HTML, and how to monitor this installation, among other important points.
Continue reading and learn more about AMP!
1. After all, what is Google AMP?
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), or Accelerated Pages for Mobile Devices in free translation, is an open-source project created to help web content creators optimize their websites for mobile devices, speeding up loading.
The goal was to make page loading instantaneous, without losing multimedia content, such as videos, animations, and graphics, as well as smart ads. It was also important to ensure that the same code worked across multiple platforms and devices.
As of February 2016, Google started to integrate this technology into its search results, highlighting it at the top of searches. Pages equipped with this technology have a circle with a lightning bolt and the acronym AMP next to the title.
2. What is the history of AMP and in what context was the technology developed?
AMP was developed by Google to be a direct competitor to Facebook Instant Articles (a news editing resource through which collaborative content circulates on the social network) and Apple News (a news aggregator developed by Apple for the iOS operating system).
Optimized for mobile online browsing, AMP was announced by Google on October 7, 2015, following a long period of discussions with technology companies, news publishers, and contributors to the Digital News Initiative, a group that encourages the development of products, training, and innovation that impact journalism around the world.
From the announcement of the development of AMP to the present, these were the facts that marked the project’s performance in its relationship with internet users:
- By the end of 2015, more than 30 news publishers and technology companies (Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress, etc.) had joined the AMP Project development team;
- In September 2016, Microsoft built support for AMP into Bing apps for iOS and Android;
- in February 2017, Adobe took advantage of the project’s first year of launch to announce that AMP pages represented 7% of online traffic on the main news publishing sites in the United States;
- in May 2017, Google reported that around 1 million internet domains were publishing content related to AMP technology;
- In June 2017, Twitter linked to AMP pages in iOS and Android apps;
- In September 2018, Microsoft launched its own AMP page viewer and cache on Bing.
The last update on Google AMP takes us back to September 18, 2018, when the company announced an open governance model for the project.
3. Why is it advantageous to use AMP?
At this point, you know what AMP is and when it was initially developed by Google. But the question that remains is about the advantage of using this technology on different devices, right?
The main advantage of AMP is the speed at which web pages load. The reason is that, in general, the longer the website loads, the more impatient users become and the higher the bounce rates for content. broadcast.
Without applying AMP to HTML, the result could not be less impactful: the website tends to be overlooked in Google results, losing its online visibility and, possibly, ceasing to be an authority on the subject it relates to.
4. Why does AMP work on PCs?
Before answering the question, it is necessary to identify that the focus of AMP technology is mobile devices, although it is possible to access optimized pages on PC as well.
The system is compatible with any system and works in the main browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Edge, in addition to optimizing page loading on smartphones and computers.
5. What is the relationship between AMP and Facebook Instant Articles?
Google’s AMP and Facebook’s Instant Articles are different projects, but they have some similarities. One of them is that both were developed to increase page loading speed. The second works only for redirection via Facebook, while the first is an open-source tool that focuses on reaching any web page.
6. What is the relationship between SEO and AMP?
Search Engine Optimization or simply SEO is the set of techniques used to improve the positioning of pages on Google and other search engines, generating, in this process that involves technology, quality content, and authority in the online world, organic traffic for the companies involved.
On the other hand, AMP is a tool for optimizing mobile online browsing, contributing to the fast loading of internet pages and optimizing the user experience with quality content, which is prioritized by search engines through SEO practice.
Thus, AMP applied to HTML works to speed up the loading of web pages, helping content optimized by SEO techniques appear first on Google and other search engines relevant to the public.
7. How does AMP work?
This technology was created based on technologies already existing on the web, that is, it uses HTML as a markup language. AMP-HTML is nothing more than HTML5 accompanied by a set of requirements and restrictions. Optimization is powered by JavaScript and styling is enhanced by CSS3. Additionally, pages are cached.
We can say that Google AMP works similarly to the CDN, being free and operating on the “stale-while-revalidate” model, which guarantees that the content will always be updated in the cache. The process is simple: when the user enters the website, a request is made, and a cached version is sent to the browser. After that, there is a new request for the document from its original server, which will update it.
In this way, we can say that AMPs are completely separate from a typical mobile website, and a website can have three versions: for desktop, the responsive version, and the AMP for smartphones. In the hierarchy, the desktop version is the main one, leaving the responsive and AMP as alternatives.
8. How to configure AMP on your website?
You don’t need to be a programming expert to learn how to set up AMP on your website. The best CMSs offer plugins that make this configuration easier. Among them, we can highlight the most popular: WordPress. See below how to carry out this process:
- access your website’s WordPress dashboard ;
- then, go to the plugins menu and click on “add new”;
- To configure and make optimizations, such as analyzing Google Analytics data, inserting structured data, and using Google Tag Manager, you must install the AMP for WP plugin;
- To set up Google Analytics, go to AMP in your WordPress dashboard and click Analytics. Then enter your account tracking code;
- to check the appearance of the accelerated pages, click on “Design” and then on “Launch Post Builder”;
- when the new screen opens, click on “AMP”, and “Appearance” Select the information you want to keep on the accelerated pages and configure the colors to suit your brand identity;
- after the basic configuration, return to the main WordPress panel, access the AMP menu, and analyze each of the configuration items to edit according to the demands of your website;
- To view the final version of an AMP publication, simply access the address and type AMP at the end of the URL — this check can even be done on your computer.
To configure using another CMS, go to the project’s official website and follow the specific step-by-step instructions.
9. What is the difference between AMP and responsive pages?
Answering the question, responsive pages, also known as mobile-friendly, are a design strategy to present content in an organized and efficient way to the user, regardless of the device with which they access the internet.
On the other hand, AMP aims to improve web page loading speed, focusing on delivering qualified content as quickly as possible to those accessing the internet via mobile devices.
10. What is the importance of AMP-HTML?
The main function of AMP-HTML is to make everything external to the website asynchronous, that is, the system operates so that no page element blocks the rendering of another website.
Therefore, even though Google AMP Cache is optional, it is important to use this tool to store all AMP-HTML pages in cache on Google servers, automatically impacting the machine’s performance.
11. How to validate AMP-HTML?
After configuring and creating the AMP versions of your pages, you must validate the code. The project team itself provides a tool for this for free. The best way is to access the AMP validator tools and insert a page link by adding “/amp” at the end of the URL and clicking “Validate”. If the Validation Status returns PASS, it means your code is ok.
If the result is “FAIL”, it means there are errors that will need to be corrected for correct display and indexing in search engines. The great advantage of the official tool is that, below the status, a list of errors found will appear.
12. How to track AMP indexing?
To monitor the indexing of AMP pages on Google, specifically, in Google Search Console, follow this explanatory step-by-step:
- when you see that the website page has been crawled by Google, check the “AMP” item in the side menu of your Search Console account;
- click on the “AMP” option to open the report on the pages on your website ;
- look for the “Details” section, located below the print graph, to observe errors, if they occurred during the process;
- after correcting possible errors in loading web pages, click on each of the errors listed by the platform;
- Finally, select the “Validate” option to confirm that the problems have been corrected by Google.
When the site is in the intermediate stage of correction, pages with valid AMP are shown in green on the graph, while pages with errors are represented by red lines.
Keep in mind that the error-checking process, by which Google validates that pages are working correctly, can take a few days. But this care is essential for you and the website developer to guarantee the best online experience for the user.
In this content, you understood that AMP is a standard that is here to stay and, as it is an open-source tool, the tendency is to grow in features and possibilities. Therefore, anyone who is a website administrator or content producer must stay up to date with this technology, which is essential to delivering the best user experience and staying up to date with good SEO practices.
Did you like the post? Want to start using AMP on your website today? Here you can find out how to have the best structure to adhere to this innovation.
