Amp Pages

 In SEO, website speed

Google continues to move forward with their algorithm and optimization in the digital world that is ever evolving. Below you’ll see a graph of desktop searches.

 

I’m not sure I believe it but in just a few short years desktop went from 100% of Google searches to in the minority. I think the numbers might be a little skewed as last May was the first time Google stated Mobile search had officially surpassed desktop search. The reality of it, though, is mobile is the future. Google is planning ahead and giving benefits to those websites that are optimizing for mobile search. Mobile AMP pages or “Accelerated Mobile Pages” are optimized for page load speed. Studies have shown that if a web page does not load within 2 or 3 seconds, a user will abandon your site.

Think about that for a second. That’s all it takes for you or anyone to lose business. A fraction of a second. And to be fair it may not even be your fault. The device could just have mediocre signal at the time but because your page was loaded sub-optimally, you missed out on a potential client.

If you are unaware of how your page acts on mobile, type it into Google’s free tool, the Mobile-Friendly Test. You’d be surprised that even something as prolific as the Ohio Theather, their website doesn’t pass the mobile-friendly test.

Ohio Theater Fails Google Mobile Friendly Test

Ohio Theater Fails Google Mobile-Friendly Test

It has been just over a year now since Google released AMP pages and nearly 600 million pages and 700 thousand domains are AMP publishers. These websites are seeing more repeat traffic, engagement, and click-throughs compared to sites that are not optimized for mobile.

Let’s not be confused, though, responsive websites do NOT equal mobile-optimized sites. Responsive websites will adjust their layout and text size according to the size of the screen. In the picture below you’ll see the typical layout based on the standard WordPress setup. The webmaster can select where columns are placed depending choice and device.

Image of grid design used for mobile responsive websites

Website Fluid Grid

Mobile optimized typically refers to the Javascript and CSS code, images and other variables that will affect your site to make it load slower. Some problems are codes necessary for tracking Adwords, Facebook ads, and others as explained below by Webris.org’s Ryan Stewart. As he recommends, Google’s tag manager minimized the amount of code on your site while still providing the same tracking information as you would have needed previously.

Additionally what you can do it copy your javascript or CSS code and do something call minify your code. A minifier will take your code and remove all the unnecessary data that is not needed to load your website properly. This will allow your pages to load faster while still producing the same results.

AMP Project is an open source initiative that is optimizing the web for mobile content. As a whole, in the last five years or so the internet has shifted from a text-based platform to something mostly visual with Youtube and apps such as Instagram or Snapchat. Anything visual has a large file size and in turn, causes web pages to load slower. This is where AMP pages come in.

AMP uses a caching method to store temporary information about your website on a mobile device, increasing your website speed. It also uses a proxy-based delivery method to allow all HTML, Javascript files, and images all to load from the exact same source. This allows the hardware and software to work more efficiently with all the information coming from one location.

 

In conclusion, AMP pages are here to stay. With the number of users that have already switched over, Google has quite a sample for testing purposes. Mobile optimized and realistically mobile ONLY may happen sooner than we can imagine. Many services are becoming cloud-based which do not require additional installation and allow users access on both desktop or mobile. I can only think that these types of services are in their infancy and the number will continue to grow into the future.

 

Thanks for reading! We’ll keep tabs on Google’s algorithm as it changes. Keep following us here on our website http://alexfurfaro.com  or check us out on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter,  or Instagram to stay informed about all your Google Search needs.

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This is a picture of a Penguin symbolizing a recent update of Google's algorithm codenamed "Penguin."Google Ranking Factors for SEO