Have you ever tried to look something up on your phone, and the website with the content you need just won’t load quickly enough? Or perhaps you’ve stumbled upon a website that isn’t formatted for your phone and you need to try to navigate that strange terrain just to find the information you need? As one of the pioneers of internet redefinition, Google is working on a solution for these woes.
According to Google’s Webmaster Central Blog, 40% of people won’t put up with a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. This inspired them to begin the Accelerated Mobile Pages project. The mission of the project is “that publishers can create mobile optimised content once and have it load instantly everywhere”, benefiting both the web publisher and the user.
So, what is AMP?
Essentially, these accelerated mobile sites use similar technology to the websites we’re used to seeing, but they have a specific set of functionalities that prevent the website from getting bogged down.
What does AMP look like on mobile websites?
The intention of AMP is not to change the way we look at or interact with websites, with the exception of making them more accessible via speed. You can visit the AMP project’s website to find a list of publishers around the globe that are using AMP and you’ll find that these websites are the same to navigate but load much more quickly on your mobile device. You’ll see this span from e-commerce websites like Mashable all the way to news sites like NineMSN. Here are a few examples of these sites and how they look:
Why is AMP Important?
The internet is one of the most crucial tools in day-to-day life and we count on it to be reliable and functional. Publishers using the AMP format will find that traffic on their sites increase, as consumers will find it easier and more convenient to navigate their sites. As a proponent of this initiative to streamline the mobile web format, Google will soon expand the exposure of these AMP websites, prioritising them over sites that don’t use the AMP format in order to provide the best mobile web experience possible.
Here’s the most recent statement from Google Webmaster’s blog:
Later this year, all types of sites that create AMP pages will have expanded exposure across the entire Google Mobile Search results page, like e-commerce, entertainment, travel, recipe sites and many more.
What do you think of AMP? If you think your users’ mobile experience could use some AMP-lification, let’s see how we can help!
