Google’s AMP project expands beyond news
Google is a multinational corporation that specializes on the internet –related products and services. The company has introduced revolutionary technologies over the last few decades. Among these include Google search that provides users with fast access to online information; knowledge graph that allows Google users to search for people, places, and things as well as build speech-recognizing systems capable of understanding natural experience; Google Now, and the latest addition is Google’s AMP project. Google’s AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is set to roll out to non-news related sites in coming months. In short, the AMP project is a Google project introduced for news sites that would allow the building of web pages with static content that enables them to render fast when compared to non-AMP pages. To create an AMP, three different sections are involved which are the AMP HTML, the Google AMP Cache, and the AMP JS.
Less than six months after the introduction of the project, which was intended for news sites only, it has become clear that Google’s AMP pages are expanding beyond news sites. The concept of Google’s AMP pages expanding beyond news is expected to revolutionalize the way pages for non-news sites will load on search engines, as it is already clear that the AMP pages are loading much faster than non-AMP pages. The AMP project gives developers an opportunity to utilize their design skills to create more content with restrictions for reliable performance.
Google’s AMP pages expanding beyond news will create more opportunities for developers to build content with additional extensions to make richer and faster rendering content beyond basic HTML. According to a Google spokesperson, the AMP project will be moving AMP to other mobile sites by introducing a demo site like the one they did with the rollout for the news sites. The opportunity will give developers a chance to fine tune AMP support for their sites before it rolls out the feature to all Google users.
According to Rudy Galfi, a product manager with the AMP team, already Google’s AMP project has more than 150 million AMP documents on the web originating from around 650,000 domains within the Google’s index. Although majorities of these pages are not available to users yet, the AMP project shows that it is a viable project.
The standard AMP lightning bolt symbol appears next to most instant-loading pages with AMP support. The demo site has been of great help, and that is why Google plans to expand the project to other non-news related content/pages. The project team is still making efforts to improve support for AMP pages especially in finding out ways that they can be accelerated to support e-commerce platforms.
One important feature of AMP is its ability to load faster than standard non-AMP pages loading up to four times faster. According to Gulf, the median load time for AMP pages is less than one second. Another advantage of the AMP pages is that they do not affect the Google rankings for specific pages. This means that there are no changes to the search results whether you have an AMP page or a non-AMP page. However, knowing that non-AMP pages are much slower to load and that they are cluttered with several blocks through the ads, users may be inclined to tap on the AMP pages, as they will be aware of the AMP’s benefits.
“Another advantage of using AMP pages is that they do not affect a user’s browsing experience because they load faster and have customized support for ads,” says Devin Schumacher from SEO Firepower. Mr. Schumacher says his agency provides seo help to firms in most major cities in the United States and has been revamping the AMP pages of over 85% of his clients over the last quarter. He provides additional help on his blog, seoexpertonline.info.
With these developments, Google’s AMP pages expanding beyond news sites will be welcome to the bigger internet user’s community as faster speeds and fewer distractions will translate into lower costs and better quality pages. However, it is important to note that although the expectations are high, it is still important to take precautions, as no one knows what the results will be. Thus, may be creating two sets of pages during the trial phase may be a welcome idea. Using such a strategy may allow internet users to enjoy the benefits of Google’s AMP pages before the final rollout to all users is finally made. As an open source initiative from Google, Google’s AMP pages may end up being a universal system acceptable to all within a few months. Within the next few months, we will probably be enjoying Google’s AMP pages on a much wider scale.