A.M.P stands for “accelerated mobile pages” and is something we first mentioned last year and tweeted about several times. Now we have started a new year and thoughts turn to changes and updates, we consider whether A.M.P could benefit you and what the likely trend for it will be.
What is it?
Essentially and in short, A.M.P allows websites to load much quicker on mobile mediums. The benefit of this is that user friendly credentials are significantly increased and this is more likely to lead to people stopping longer on the website and engaging with it more.
What isn’t it?
This is very important as it is all too easy and tempting to think that the above leads to a great website and nothing further needs to be done. This simply isn’t the case. A.M.P does nothing with respect to what is actually on your website – i.e. the content, and whether this is engaging to the audience. A perfect website which conforms to A.M.P requirements but lacks in other areas is unlikely to increase your rankings as it is the overall package that is important.
What does it do?
To avoid complicating matters it is once again best to explain this in basic terms. Essentially A.M.P’s display a website and its content in such a way that they key and core elements of it remain whilst removing components which slow it down. Fundamentally the difference between a responsive mobile page and A.M.P probably doesn’t look much different to the human eye but the devil really is in the detail when it comes to this!
Should I think about making pages accelerated mobile?
Like most things in life there is no definite and definitive answer to this. Reading on to find out the advantages and disadvantages of A.M.P might help you make up your mind…
*Some Advantages.
1) The first is obvious and has already been mentioned. It speeds up the time it takes a website to load.
2) Rankings can also benefit. Search engines like websites which load faster and since having A.M.P does this it can only be a good thing. If Google decides to make either load time or A.M.P more of a priority in 2017 then the benefit will be even greater.
*Some Disadvantages
1) Ad revenue can be affected and therefore the scope of inclusion for this can be reduced – the question on this is whether can you compromise, which may involve living with little ad revenue?
2) Analytics become harder to implement and track. Whilst A.M.P does allow for Google analytics there is a separate code needed for this purpose. This code then needs to be implemented across all A.M.P pages. Needless to say, this can be laborious and time consuming.
So what shall I do?
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a simple answer to this? The answer really does depend on the individual or the business and whether they have the scope to benefit from the advantages but not be hit by the disadvantages. This will vary from case to case.
One thing that is important to say however: if A.M.P becomes a ranking signal during 2017, then this will definitely be the time to act!
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