What is Google Accelerated Mobile Pages
Google Accelerated Mobile Pages, or Google AMP, is one of Google’s newest projects aimed at speeding up mobile content. The AMP project is open-source so expect it to really grow as more developers adapt to the technology and enhance its core coding.
The project’s aim is to deliver instant content to mobile users that are often subject to clunky speed and lag while trying to surf conventional mobile sites.
Why Is Google So Concerned About Mobile?
Because Mobile search and browsing is the future of the Internet. Mobile searches have surpassed those of desktop/laptops and studies have shown that those consuming content on mobile do so for longer periods of time.
There have been tons of advances in speeding up web pages through desktop/laptop, but mobile has really lagged behind on how they deliver and render a webpage. The main problem being if you have a website that’s a few MB in size, with some JavaScript, HTML, CSS, etc. it’s a real pain for your cellphone to render it. Mostly because your smartphone lacks the processing power that a desktop has.
So What Does AMP Do?
Google AMP takes your content and strips it down to its bare essentials. The HTML is designed solely for mobile usage. Mobile is no longer a bootstrap or footnote of conventional desktop coding. It’s designed entirely for mobile and it’s blazing fast.
In addition to AMP being purely designed for mobile, it also takes cloud caching into account to deliver speeds that are said to be instantaneous. In today’s on-demand culture, you can’t survive without AMP.
Is Google Amp Easy To Implement?
Time will tell. If you are running WordPress, there is a plugin that’s super easy to install with minimal settings. Since it’s only version 0.3, I can’t gauge how buggy or reliable it is yet.
If your site is running HTML, there is a series of coding you will have to add in, but if you’re building sites from scratch with code, you should have no problems implementing the changes to get your content delivered with AMP.
Do I Need To Implement AMP Onto My Website?
Only if you want to implement leading technology, content that can be viewed instantly and a great customer experience. Otherwise no.
Are There Limitations Within AMP?
Design is one of the limitations with AMP. You can’t make a page as beautiful as you can within conventional web design. But that’s the point. It’s supposed to be bare bones so it gives you only the information you need in a clean package.
With the WordPress plugin, the only limitation with AMP I’ve come across is WordPress does not automatically route to the AMP and non-AMP page automatically. Your article is still domain.com/url/ and in order to read/view or link the AMP page you need to go to domain.com/url/amp/ although I’m sure this will change in the near future.
Summary
AMP can turn your content up to 11 and went live as of today (February 23, 2016). Is your content AMP compatible yet? If not, your content will be collecting dust while users wait for it to load. If AMP isn’t a part of your content plan yet, you should be looking to implement it immediately.
The future of mobile surfing is here.
