When Google announced its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project earlier this year, many web designers and publishers thought that a fast, well-connected mobile browsing experience was finally within touching distance. While the new technology has certainly changed the way in which publishers like The Guardian and BBC News deliver their content to a mobile-first audience, it can be expensive and difficult to implement. But is it a worthwhile investment for your business? Below, we round up the pros and cons.
What is AMP?
The Accelerated Mobile Pages Project was designed to remove as much of the clutter from your website’s code as possible, using asynchronous JavaScript and HTML to render your content quickly. Pages that load in AMP are essentially ‘ghost’ versions of your pages that are only delivered to mobile devices. As the content is cached by Google, it loads instantly.
AMP speeds up your website
The speed of your website is important – not only because 40% of web users will abandon your website if it takes more than three seconds to load, but because Google itself considers speed a ranking factor. However, unlike mobile versions of websites, where responsiveness and mobile friendliness are important factors for ranking boosts, AMP pages are given an automatic ranking priority over websites that are not effectively optimised for mobiles.
AMP puts less strain on your servers
Managing a server can be expensive – especially when you get a lot of traffic. AMP web pages put less strain on your resources as there’s less content to load, and because Google caches your web pages to further reduce the amount of bandwidth you will need.
…but it does have drawbacks
One of the most significant drawbacks of using Accelerated Mobile Pages is the fact that you cannot implement third-party JavaScript codes. You, therefore, could struggle to feature advertisements, tracking codes and analytics – although Google Analytics has a workaround if you want to know what your users get up to when they visit your site using AMP.
Google’s Mobile-first Index changes things
Although the benefits of AMP certainly outweigh the drawbacks, recent changes to Google’s algorithms mean that responsive, mobile-friendly websites are more important than ever. Google’s new Mobile-first Index means that mobile-friendly websites are ranked before their desktop counterparts; as such, if you rely on a quality, responsive design, you could enjoy greater benefits from SEO than you would using AMP. Google announced that it will favour the desktop version of your website over AMP when crawling web pages, so it makes sense to have a well-maintained responsive website that works for both your visitors and search engines.
At JAK, we specialise in responsive web design. If you want an attractive new look for your business that works across all devices, get in touch with the team today on sales@jakinc.uk. Alternatively, you can call us on 0191 3882 698 or click here to visit our website.