The АМР Technology: Mobile Website Optimization

23 July 2018

section Technology

In 2015, Google presented its AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) technology. This technology is aimed at accelerating the delivery of web resources for mobile devices.

In 2015, Google presented its AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) technology. This technology is aimed at accelerating the delivery of web resources for mobile devices. It is distinguished by the use of Google servers for content caching and CDN (Google Content Delivery Network). See the current CDN coverage below:

The implementation of AMP involves adding a special script and markup to the HTML code of your web application and implies a specific formation of the page content.

The Appearance of an AMP-Optimized Website

We will use one of our project’s website, cashpoint.ua, to showcase how an AMP website is displayed in Google search results and the appearance of the page itself:

Technology

The following diagram shows the process of content delivery of an AMP-optimized version of a website:

  • The publisher (the website) prepares 2 versions of page markup - a basic html version and a special amp-html version of the page;
  • These pages are indexed by search engines and cached;
  • Different platforms, such as Google, Pinterest, and Twitter, display the faster-loading cached AMP-optimized version of the pages to the user.

Advantages

Nowadays, mobile devices comprise approximately 50% of the Internet traffic in Ukraine. In other countries, this figure can be as high as 70 or even 90%. AMP-optimized pages feature a number of advantages to mobile users.

Download Speed

The pages with AMP-optimization load faster than those without it thanks to the above-mentioned Google caching system. According to Google, the median load time of AMP pages is 0.7 seconds.

Availability In All Countries

Launching a website that is to be available in different countries is a separate issue. Thanks to CDN by Google, it will take the same 0.7 seconds for the page to load in most countries, and this time will not vary depending on the location of the website servers.

Ranking of Search Results

AMP-optimized pages appear higher than other pages in search results. Consequently, the implementation of this technology can result in a higher traffic for your website.

Supported by Apps and Search Engines

The AMP format is supported by the main search engines and some social networks, such as Twitter and Pinterest.

Restrictions

At the same time, the AMP technology features a number of restrictions that one should consider in the process of development:

  • Most javascripts integrated into the page are not supported;
  • A more complex maintenance - in most cases, a few versions of the same page must be kept up to date (the usual version of the page and the AMP version);
  • When updating the content, it will also be necessary to launch Google API to update the content in Google cache.

Currently, it’s best to use the AMP technology for news media, blogs, and content aggregators. Besides, the AMP technology is being actively implemented by online shops because of its ability to increase the load speed of product pages significantly.

The AMP technology is no longer just a popular feature, it is a practical tool that allows to fulfil a number of goals to improve the user experience for your website.

Web forms on AMP pages

Even though AMP markup is quite limited, Google allows to integrate many interactive functions like Instagram posts or web forms. Web forms still come with some restrictions - validation methods, asynchronous delivery, and number of allowed elements that can be used.

You can check out implementation of a form on AMP page on our website here.

Results

To conclude, we would like to share some results we managed to achieve by using the AMP technology in our projects. Two weeks after the implementation of the AMP technology on the Botkin.pro encyclopedias, the organic search traffic doubled, exceeding 3900 unique users per day. It is preconditioned by the fact that the website contains numerous high-quality publications that improved their search result positioning thanks to AMP.

Our website does not feature a lot of content, which is why after we implemented this technology into https://freshdesign.ua, the growth was not rapid. Nevertheless, our posts began to appear much higher in search results according to a number of low-frequency queries.

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