Should Webmasters Resist Google's Push For AMP Pages? (polemicdigital.com)

"Have you heard of Google AMP? That stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, and it's a way of making webpages so that they load faster and display more efficiently on mobile devices. Oh, and it puts your website under Google's control."

That's Mac Observer co-founder Bryan Chaffin, linking to an "interesting reading" titled "Google AMP Can Go To Hell." AMP allows Google to basically take over hosting the web as well. The Google AMP Cache will serve AMP pages instead of a website's own hosting environment, and also allow Google to perform their own optimisations to further enhance user experience. As a side benefit, it also allows Google full control over content monetisation. No more rogue ad networks, no more malicious ads, all monetisation approved and regulated by Google. If anything happens that falls outside of the AMP standard's restrictions, the page in question simply becomes AMP-invalid and is ejected from the AMP cache -- and subsequently from Google's results. At that point the page might as well not exist any more....

The easy thing to do is to simply obey. Do what Google says. Accept their proclamations and jump when they tell you to. Or you could fight back. You could tell them to stuff it, and find ways to undermine their dominance. Use a different search engine, and convince your friends and family to do the same. Write to your elected officials and ask them to investigate Google's monopoly. Stop using the Chrome browser. Ditch your Android phone. Turn off Google's tracking of your every move. And, for goodness sake, disable AMP on your website.

Don't feed the monster -- fight it.
Here's how web developer Macieg Ceeglowski put it in 2015. "Out of an abundance of love for the mobile web, Google has volunteered to run the infrastructure, especially the user tracking parts of it." But are these assessments too harsh? Leave your own thoughts in the comment.

Should webmasters resist Google's push for AMP pages?

Comments

GPDR

[Anonymous Coward]

I look forward to the day Google gets record breaking fine for collecting all these personal information without informing or consent from the end users.

Google is free to withdraw from Europe as they had withdrawn from China. Another Europe based search engine will take over, as has happened in China.

Yes. Say no to AMP.

[Chas]

Google already has enough of a stranglehold over the web.

And don't go with the Facebook Instant Articles or Apple News either.

While AMP is, ostensibly, an open-source project, the fact that it's leadership is in the hands of these corporate advertising giants should give anyone with a lick of sense pause.

Fuck Webmasters

[Z34107]

Should webmasters "resist Google's push for AMP pages"? Webmasters should really just write mobile websites that don't suck ass, but that's apparently just not something they'll do of their own volition. Most of my mobile browsing is just reading some headlines to kill time, and it's amazing how bad news websites in particular are--laggy scrolling, pop-overs, teleporting ads, teleporting paragraphs, etc. When AMP came out, that shit disappeared from anything I Googled practically overnight--any time I've clicked (tapped, I guess) through to an AMP page, it's loaded quickly, scrolling has worked, and nothing teleports.

Are there privacy implications? Of course, but they're rather marginal for someone already using Google's search engine, e-mail, news reader, chat programs, and browser. Is AMP necessary to write a good mobile website? Of course not, but writing a good mobile website is just not something a paste-eating webmaster will do unless someone grabs him by the ad dollars, forces him into a padded cell, and takes away so much markup he couldn't possibly fuck up what's left.

TL;DR AMP exists because webmasters are universally incompetent. If you chucklefucks weren't utter failures, AMP would never have happened.

Dictators -- they ain't what they used to be

[perpenso]

Dictators do not work for industry or countries.

They used to, sometimes. But modern dictators ain't what they used to be. ;-)

In the Roman Republic (emphasize Republic, after the kings, before the emperors) the dictator had a temporary appointment and absolute authority limited to the territory in crisis, for example a region with active warfare. An interesting story:

Rome was invaded. The Senate appointed a man named Cincinnatus dictator for six months. On his first day he appointed a military commander and ordered all able bodied males in Rome to report for military service. The next day they marched to meet the enemy. He outmaneuvered the enemy and put them in a very bad position, they begged for mercy. The deal was to execute the top three enemy leaders and grant amnesty to the bulk of the enemy army. Cincinnatus then disbanded his Roman army and resigned the dictatorship. He was dictator for about two weeks and then returned to his farm outside of Rome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Fines and reasons

[Lonewolf666]

There is also the possible angle of anti-competitive behavior.

This article https://newsdashboard.com/en/how-do-amp-articles-perform-in-the-mobile-serp-for-google-news-oneboxes/ suggests that non-AMP pages are strongly de-emphasized in search rankings (despite Google claiming otherwise, addition mine).
Now Google was in trouble with the EU before for forcing Android mobile phone producers to pre-install Google Search and browser apps as conditions for licensing its app store.
I don't see yet for what exact reason Google would get fined this time, as in theory everybody can make AMP sites. Perhaps the owners of competing search engines could complain to the EU.

Re:Hell yes

[AmiMoJo]

Actually Google provides better privacy for users.

Your ISP can directly connect your DNS queries to you. Google just sees a query from an IP address and that could be your VPN service. At least, it's no worse than your ISP.

Ads are dangerous. They often contain malware. Google is by far the best when it comes to checking ads for malware and limiting them to text and a malware scanned link. Also, you can really easily block them. So AMP pages are great if you like your privacy.

For webmasters I don't know, but there hasn't been a big backlash from the major content providers so I'm guessing it can't be that bad. But for users it's great.

Re:Hell yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming ISPs actually do that. Which I seriously doubt in regions with tough privacy laws. Google just hides behind layers and layers legal declarations that snake through multiple jurisdictions.

On top of that, Google runs everything in this scenario. They have access to much more data and they do collect as much as they can. They control web sites and they shape what you get to see. If they don't like what they see, you as a user won't get to see it either.

Why? It's and open standard ...

[Qbertino]

... and, AFAICT, a good and useful one.

Why should I resist that?

So AMP is a reduced HTML standard to make mobile websites load faster and less bloated that the bullshit we see today spewed into the public web by people who can't tell a server from a client and shouldn't be let near a keyboard of a connected computer, let alone in the lead position of some web project. Pagecalls weigh in twice to three times as heavy as an entire Amiga operating system these days. If your would delivered such a thing 18 years ago people would've beat you up and for good reasons too.

So Google wants to cache my website with AMP? Nice. Go right ahead. If they update the content in their cache whenever I do I'm all for it. The more I can tell clients that their crappy bloated piece of shit they call a website is going to be deranked into unseen depths of Google if they don't use sensible unbroken web presentations, AMP is a good thing and it will be a part of my optimisation strategy for professional websites.