Google Releases Accelerated Mobile Pages


Google has released and is actively encouraging content publishers to use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). AMP are designed to load content for mobile users instantly by utilizing AMP HTML, an open-source framework. AMP HTML strips down the content to only the most necessary elements on a publisher's page including: text, pictures, video, and ads allowing it to load (and preload in Google search) lightning fast.

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As you know, site speed is a major ranking factor and for now, those publishers using AMP will see a benefit in the search results with AMP content displayed in a carousel at the top of the results for select queries. The catch is a blue bar will be displayed across the content to allow users to easily return to the Google search results page. So early in its release, we can expect to see the implementation of AMP in the search results to change as Google tweaks its algorithm for relevance but you can check out an AMP search results page from Google's test page here (just be sure you're using a mobile device).

Many CMS (including WordPress) have already released plug-ins to allow publishers an easy way to utilize AMP, but it appears that this addition may require site owners to maintain two different code bases. Google said they anticipate this and it shouldn't pose a problem with duplicate content issues. Clicking links within a page using AMP opens into a new window so there is an opportunity to keep users engaged on your site. Another couple of points to consider is that third-party JavaScript is disabled in AMP and the pages are only compatible with a small list of analytics companies including: Google Analytics, Chartbeat, Parse.ly, and Adobe Analytics.

This early it's hard to say who will be the early adopters of the framework, but if you'd like to dive in the source code is available on GitHub here and Google's official blog post is here...

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