Initially introduced in 2016, the AMP format has seen a lot of changes over the years. Whether or not you are a fan of this open-source technology, let’s define together if it is necessary to boost your digital strategy.
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What Is The AMP Format?
Google AMP (an acronym for Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an HTML framework that allows publishers to create hyper-fast loading copies of web pages for mobile.
This technology results from a general transition of users to mobile when it comes to browsing the internet. Currently, AMP can be used for websites, advertisements, emails, and even web stories, which aim to replicate the success of Instagram and Facebook Stories.
2 Ways To Offer Your Pages In AMP
There are 2 ways to display your web pages in AMP format:
- The AMP player (AMP Viewer): In this case, your URL will be displayed as a Google domain, but the part of your website will also be displayed at the top of the AMP player. This is the default setting for Google AMP pages.
- The other way to display content on your site is through a signed exchange. The signed deal allows the browser to display your web page as if it belonged to your domain. This means it will show your part in the URL field instead of a Google domain.
How To Use Google AMP?
The goal of the AMP format is to improve the user experience, so you can bet it will have implications for your SEO. Here are our tips on how to use Google AMP to boost your SEO:
- Make sure your AMP pages are correctly set up.
- Make sure your AMP pages are indexable and crawlable. Google requires that AMP pages always link to a canonical page. The canonical page can be either a non-AMP version or the AMP page itself.
- Create AMP pages with a responsive design as they are not strictly for mobile devices.
- Use the AMP Test Tool to check if your AMP page is valid.
- Ensure UI consistency between AMP and non-AMP versions of the page.
- Ensure that structured data markup is consistent between AMP and non-AMP versions of the page.
- Follow the AMP logo guidelines.
- Keep AMP URLs outside of your XML sitemap.
Do You Need The AMP Format?
We won’t make you wait long; for us, the answer is no.
AMP isn’t essential for displaying your content on mobile, and the SEO results aren’t always worth implementing AMP on your site.
Following the June 2021 Google Page Experience Update, AMP is no longer required for content to rank in the SERP Top Stories feature or Google News. Google also removed the AMP badge icon that indicated AMP content directly in the SERPs. This removes much of the pressure web publishers previously felt to implement the AMP format to gain mobile visibility.
Therefore, we advise you to focus your efforts on responsive web pages that will load quickly rather than setting up the AMP format for them.
In addition, in a survey conducted in May 2021, 40% of respondents said they wanted to remove the AMP format from their site once Google rolled out the Page Experience update.
The Benefits Of AMP
Even though using AMP is not required to rank well on Google, it has benefits worth the effort. Here are some examples:
- Faster page load times.
- Increased engagement on the site.
- Lower bounce rate.
The Disadvantages Of AMP
In some cases, implementing the AMP format is not worth the effort. Here’s why you should exercise caution when determining if AMP is the right choice for your site:
- It can be challenging to implement correctly.
- Hindering UX functionality.
- Difficult to set up an advanced design for your pages.
- The cost of the crawl is doubled so that Google can ensure parity.
- Google’s AMP player displays URLs as a Google domain.
What Future For The AMP Format?
For the moment, this framework remains a viable option if you want to improve the loading speed of your pages without much effort. For this purpose, there are very easy to use WordPress plugins that will allow you to convert your pages to AMP format.
However, with the update of Page Experience and the abandonment of AMP as a prerequisite to appearing in Google News, likely, this format will gradually disappear. Therefore, we strongly advise you to focus on the performance of your pages.
Also Read: The Importance Of Link Magnets For Search Engine Ranking