AMP support plus other Core Vitals

[Songstuff]

Hi

Maybe it’s happened and I just missed it. I see requests at least as far back as 2016. Google punishes sites that fail in core vitals and AMP support is a big part of achieving them. Google has a long history of prioritising sites that use it’s tech, especially if it is latest tech. To me, if you implement anything else, at a minimum AMP support is not only sensible, it is essential.

Cheers

John

PS if I just missed it’s inclusion in features or the road map, sorry! Mobile on my invision forum is the only core vital any of my sites fail in. I run many sites using different platforms (mainly Wordpress) on a variety of hosts. It’s really frustrating!

[Charles]

AMP is currently surrounded by a lot of controversy and much split opinion out there as to its value. Even 5 years later people still debate if it's even relevant. I don't think we should put effort into AMP when Google is still trying to defend its existence.

[Songstuff]

Thanks Charles.

I guess the main thing is their core vitals tests. If they are punishing sites that fail them, then I am hoping that for both desktop and mobile there are sufficient tools/options to enable sites to pass those tests. That is the key concern. Some tests are easier than others.

For example, a dashboard that helps admins optimise their site or track what could be going wrong. Cache control options, mirroring control options, a bulk image converter to webp or other modern compressed image formats, css and javascript optimisation and minifying, including deferral or disabling if features are not being used. I know some bits are there but they are spread out in admin.

[Jimi Wikman]

On 11/4/2021 at 10:51 PM, Songstuff said:

Thanks Charles.

I guess the main thing is their core vitals tests. If they are punishing sites that fail them, then I am hoping that for both desktop and mobile there are sufficient tools/options to enable sites to pass those tests. That is the key concern. Some tests are easier than others.

For example, a dashboard that helps admins optimise their site or track what could be going wrong. Cache control options, mirroring control options, a bulk image converter to webp or other modern compressed image formats, css and javascript optimisation and minifying, including deferral or disabling if features are not being used. I know some bits are there but they are spread out in admin.

If you loose position to a competitor over AMP alone, I would be surprised. AMP was praised for its speed, but then as people realized that conversion dropped like a rock, it did not catch on in the most important segment: business. So I would say if this is something that will eventually be implemented, make sure it can be turned on manually only. I tried it on WordPress and hated it, and I still exit any page that show me that watered-down experience. Almost as fast as sites that ask me to turn off ad-blockers 🙂

Considering that less than 0.2% use AMP and almost none of the top sites do, if we are to believe online stats, I don't think this is a magical bullet for SEO gains. You can easily check the sites above you in the search results to see if they use AMP or not. My guess is that they simply have better SEO strategies and work more focused on their keywords, especially in the long-tail.

You may also be surprised to know that you can still rank without passing all the checks and that the checks are just the visible parts of the algorithms, not the whole solution 🙂 Content and links still are king when it comes to SEO and the goal is not to get people to your site, it is to make them stay. Right?