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The use of websites has evolved over the years; in fact, according to a We Are Social research updated in January 2017, mobile browsing in Italy has grown by 44%, while desktop browsing has decreased by 14%.
In recent years, a new approach to web design has emerged – mobile first – which completely flips the workflow that designers and developers were accustomed to.
Pages are conceptualized, designed, and optimized for mobile devices’ usage and then extended for desktop.
What are Google AMP?
Users during their online searches demand immediate information. An excessive page loading time will cause users to abandon the site.
In the wake of the mobile-first approach, Google has conceived and developed Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), an open-source framework for creating mobile web pages that allow users to view information almost instantly. The version of pages utilizing Google AMP is reduced to the essentials, retaining the most important content while eliminating elements that negatively affect page speed and performance.
Since 2016, Google has officially integrated AMP into mobile search results. Pages developed with this framework appear primarily in two ways:
- in the list of results, with the label “AMP” preceded by an icon before the result snippet.
- in a carousel generally used to highlight the most relevant or recent results.
In both cases, they are identified by a lightning bolt icon followed by the AMP label.
For Which Sites are AMP Useful?
Google AMP is useful for sites with substantial content. Mainly news websites and blogs (such as the Washington Post, Wired, Gizmodo, and la Repubblica) have implemented them.
Does the use of AMP then only apply to news sites?
“If you ask the AMP team, they will tell you that all websites should be using AMP. It’s definitively one way to make really fast websites, or websites that load almost instantly. If you’ve been holding off because you’re saying, well, my website doesn’t need this, then maybe it makes sense to take a look again and see what it does now. So at the moment, we’re only showing them in the top carousel and I expect that to expand to other parts of the search results as well.“
John Mueller, Senior Google Webmaster Trend Analyst, Switzerland
The Future of Google AMP
Google’s project offers significant benefits to mobile browsing, but we can’t yet definitively define its future.
From John Mueller’s words, it’s clear that their use is expanding to other types of sites. Their functionalities are growing; a recent example of alternative uses for Google AMP is eBay, which started implementing them on its e-commerce platform to speed up searches and enhance the user shopping experience.
The project’s growth is continuous, all in the phase of experimentation and modification. Being an open-source technology, anyone can collaborate with observations, suggestions, and even development.
The constant introduction of new features holds promise for an innovative future for AMP and the user experience in mobile browsing.
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