Google is getting ready to roll out an ambitious Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project this month to speed up mobile content delivery and create a better user experience.
According to the search giant, Google Accelerated Mobile Pages is an open source initiative designed to give publishers a way to create mobile optimized content once and have it load instantly everywhere on the mobile web.
The initiative, developed with input from partners in the publishing and technology sectors, is a direct response to in-app projects like Facebook’s Instant Articles, Snapchat’s Discover platform and Apple’s News that also deliver fast mobile page load times – but on specific platforms.
Since Google wants users to stay on the mobile web instead of on rivals’ apps, it’s pushing for widespread adoption of Google Accelerated Mobile Pages along with the open AMP HTML framework upon which the accelerated contend delivery system is based.
The AMP HTML framework, built out of existing web technologies, can be likened to HTML on a diet. On the framework, almost all JavaScript is stripped away to ensure content loads extremely fast when clicked on from a Google search.
Google Accelerated Mobile Pages will also deliver much faster load times because content will be cached via the cloud, meaning Google won’t have to fetch it from a publisher’s site each time a request is made, according to the AMP official website.
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Google’s senior vice president for ads and commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, while speaking at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting last month explained how a better and faster mobile experience with enhanced measurement can unlock the next $50 Billion in advertising revenue for businesses.
“While much of the news about mobile advertising today is focused on the challenges, the opportunity is truly enormous,” Ramaswamy said. “Right now predictions suggest that the next $50 billion in digital ad spend will come by 2020. But, if we come together as an industry to offer better mobile experiences and better measurement, I believe that we will easily beat that prediction.”
How Google Accelerated Mobile Pages are Expected to Change the Landscape
For many mobile users, reading on the mobile web is slow, clunky and frustrating – a situation that has contributed to more users using ad blockers as they try to speed up mobile web browsing, write the authors of AMP’s official website.
But, it doesn’t have to be that way, say the Google Accelerated Mobile Pages site authors. With AMP, web readers can get near instantaneous articles, everywhere across multiple mobile operating systems and devices.
It is not difficult to see, in light of this news, how Google’s accelerated mobile pages can be a game changer for mobile web users, publishers and consumer platforms.
“Every time a webpage takes too long to load, [brands and publishers] lose a reader—and the opportunity to earn revenue through advertising or subscriptions,” explained David Besbris, Vice President Engineering Search at Google, in a blog post announcing AMP last year.
However, once launched, Google Accelerated Mobile Pages will not only ensure your digital content is accessible almost instantly from search, but also supported on Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress, Parse.ly, Adobe Analytics, Nuzzel, Pinterest and, potentially, anywhere online, Besbris said in the October announcement.
Publishers will also have access to Google Analytics to measure how their AMP content is performing, along with ad support.
For publishers looking to use AMP to provide an improved user experience, we’ve released Google Analytics measurement capabilities for Accelerated Mobile Pages. AMP support in Google Analytics makes it easy to identify your best content and optimize your user experience.” Google said when announcing AMP support in Google Analytics.
Any websites using AMP HTML will also have a comprehensive range of ad formats, ad networks and technologies, Besbris stated in the October AMP announcement. Publishers will also retain their choice of ad networks, as well as any formats that don’t detract from the user experience, he said.
“Clearly, AMP takes speed to a point of extreme,” Richard Gingras, senior director, news and social products at Google, added in a report on Adage. “So, obviously we look to leverage that,” said Gingras, referring to Google favoring faster AMP sites over others with the same search score in the search results it shows consumers.
Getting Started with Google Accelerated Mobile Pages
Digital publishers are not presently required to AMP-enable their content, but it’s probably a good idea to do so, considering Google is likely to prioritize AMP sites due to their extremely fast load times and optimization for the mobile Web.
If you produce digital content and would like to get started using AMP immediately, Google has created a resource that walks you through the steps of creating an AMP page. The steps consist of adding a piece of boilerplate code, adding a marked up image and then styling the page using CSS.
Leading content managing systems like WordPress have also announced their support of AMP with the release of a WordPress plug-in, making it even easier for you to enable AMP on your business website.
Google said it would roll out Google Accelerated Mobile Pages to everyone late February, 2016.
Image: Google
It true! if a webpage doesnt load in 3 seconds 40% of the people they jump on to another source. It would be interesting how this works out as their first attempt, responsive websites, didnt really help. Infact it created a bunch of problems for the developers and for SEOs both.