Should large corporate brands switch to AMP?

The Takeaway

Google’s AMP Project has provided performance boosts for major publishers, and now boasts that 850,000 domains are leveraging the (supposedly) revolutionary new mark-up language.  Marketing agencies across the world are getting excited about this and making recommendations that the large brands they serve should also make the switch to AMP.  Whilst AMP comes with some clear benefits to large publishing houses, there is little practical use in corporate brands making the switch.  There are also some more fundamental concerns regarding what a switch to AMP says about your Brand.

Introduction

Google created Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) as a direct response to Facebook gobbling up the mobile news traffic with their Instant Articles.  In short, AMP is a customised version of HTML (with some JavaScript and a cache) proprietary to Google, with its core aim to reduce load and speed up the internet.  It’s been around for 18 months, and has gotten traction with major news and publishing outlets such as The Guardian, The New York Times, and WIRED.  AMP’s development is via an open source project, but given that the required JavaScript and the AMP cache is hosted by Google, it’s definitely their baby.

Jeremy Keith’s journal has the most straightforward summary of what AMP “is”:

1. The AMP format. A bunch of web components. For instance, instead of using an img element on an AMP page, you use an amp-img element instead.
2. The AMP rules.  There’s one JavaScript file, hosted on Google’s servers, that turns those web components from spans into working elements.  No other JavaScript is allowed.  All your styles must be in a style element instead of an external file, and there’s a limit on what you can do with those styles.
3. The AMP cache. The source of most confusion – and even downright enmity – this is what’s behind the fact that when you launch an AMP result from Google search, you don’t go to another website. You see Google’s cached copy of the page instead of the original.

The cache is the critical piece here. When a user clicks on an AMP page in Google they are not taken to your website, but rather to a cached copy of it on Google’s servers. This fundamentally alters the trust principle on the web. When displaying search results Google is actively fetching and caching the AMP content on a subdomain under its control. This fundamentally alters how the internet works: AMP allows Google to transition from being an index pointing at global content, to a host of that content instead, keeping users within the Google sphere.

Why AMP is being recommended

Your SEO Manager is probably pretty hyped about AMP. Given that the primary purpose of AMP is improving the journey from Search to Content, that’s understandable. AMP pages can form part of the coveted Featured section of the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page), which could drive significant benefits on traffic acquisition for content and campaigns.

Another key SEO benefit comes from how fast the page loads. Google actively penalises slow-loading and JavaScript-laden sites now, so high performing content will get an SEO boost. AMP can certainly help with this, but is not required: you can achieve the same performance boost using standard mark-up with appropriate discipline.

The only other real benefit to AMP relates to Google’s plans to prioritise how that connects with other services and apps. But as yet, there are no real attractive benefits here.

Why AMP remains a poor choice for corporates

There are a number of myths spouted by agencies when they try and sell in AMP to large brands. Assessing each of these in turn:

1. AMP is fast: AMP is not at all necessary for high performing websites. It’s benefits are wholly related to improving the journey from Search (specifically Google) to content. AMP drives principles and behaviours around web design which vastly improve load times, but the very same results could be achieved without using AMP.
2. It improves search rankings: Google, and other search engines, will penalise poor performing sites. Google does not mandate AMP in regards to this, but rather specifies a set of criteria by which is classes site performance as being good. This may change, but Google would be significantly derided if it began to prioritise sites that use its proprietary code.
3. It optimises mobile web experience: This is limited to the mobile experience of search, and the journey to content. Once on the page there is no user experience benefit of using AMP.
4. It kills JavaScript: A key proponent of AMP is to remove the use of JavaScript to dramatically improve speed and reliability of sites. AMP requires you strictly conform on this and you must remove all third party JavaScript, unless within iframes, and even then it comes with limitations. Ironically, AMP requires Google owned and hosted JavaScript to work properly, so it doesn’t kill the use of JavaScript on the web, jus forces you to use Google code and not your own. Because hey, Google knows best right?

Aside from these core issues, large brands will have a number of other hurdles to jump to leverage AMP. The Marketing and IT teams have most likely spent years building up digital capabilities of your brand, from content delivery through measurement and advertising. To leverage AMP you must disrupt many elements in this stack.

Firstly, your Content Management System (CMS) will need amending to support AMP-ready components. The more components and content you have, the larger the effort required to migrate these to AMP. For those heavily invested in the CMS, this could cost millions and be a large, lengthy, and complex project. Google penalises AMP pages that aren’t “pure” (100% conformation to their standard), so a hybrid model gets you nowhere. Sites that do not confirm to the full AMP specification won’t be cached or Featured, so the AMP components on your page become useless.

Secondly, your digital measurement is likely to also require some reworking activities. Google Analytics plays nicely with AMP, but other analytics tools such as Adobe or WebTrends will be harder to fit, especially if there is a reliance on JavaScript.

Thirdly, advertising and data collection, to a DMP or otherwise, will be totally screwed if they are managed via tag injection, which many mature brands are doing. AMP is violently opposed to third party injections. Instead you will need to work to support each advertising platform via AMP connections, which is fiddly at best, and a number of platforms are not supported at all.

Finally, core elements of branding and design may need to be tempered to fit in with the AMP model.

Feed the Beast

The central aim of AMP – speeding up the internet – is one I am fully on board with. However, what I’d instead like to see from Google is a more agnostic approach to improving website performance. Their existing guides and tools, such as the PageSpeed Tool, are excellent. But they are not front-and centre as they should be. Instead, mandating a proprietary web language and undermining trust on the internet is what Google has opted for. It’s certainly not noble. Approach with caution.