AMP pages now appear in Google's Top stories carousel on phones, which matters to news and article publishers. Most service businesses gain little from AMP yet and should make their ordinary pages fast first.

What appeared on Wednesday

Search a phone for something in the news, and since Wednesday a row of articles may appear near the top under the heading Top stories. Some carry a small lightning bolt and the letters AMP.

Tap one and it opens almost instantly. Swipe sideways and the next story is already there.

These are Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP: lean copies of articles, built to a strict format so they load at once, and stored by Google so it can serve them itself.

The carousel appears on phones, for searches about current events. A search for a plumber in Burnaby looks exactly as it did last week.

What AMP is

AMP is a recipe for a page with most of the usual ingredients removed. The page's own scripts are not allowed, only AMP's ready-made components, and styling is limited to a small amount kept in the page itself.

Images go through AMP's own tag, with their sizes declared in advance, so the phone can lay out the page before anything has downloaded.

An article then exists twice: the normal page on your site, and an AMP version that the normal page points to. Google finds the AMP version through that pointer and keeps a copy.

The result is fast because so much is missing. That is the bargain.

Who it matters for

The last two cover most small businesses. An article on choosing a furnace, however useful, is not a top story, and the carousel is where AMP shows today.

What a publisher gives up

Design, first. AMP pages look plain, and the site's own menus, sidebars, related articles and most widgets do not come across unless someone rebuilds them in AMP's terms.

Ads must use AMP's own ad component, and not every ad network or format works with it yet. A publisher that lives on advertising needs to check this before anything else.

Forms, comment sections and newsletter sign-ups mostly disappear, which removes the routes from an article to a customer.

And articles opened from the carousel are served from Google's copy, under a Google address, so readers may not notice whose site they are reading.

What it takes on WordPress

There is a free AMP plugin for WordPress. Once switched on, it creates an AMP version of each post, at the post's address with /amp/ added to the end.

It covers posts, not pages, and its design is basic: a title, the article, the main image and a small header with the site's name. Matching the logo and colours takes some work.

Analytics needs its own tracking on AMP pages, or visits from the carousel go uncounted. Google also expects article markup, a few lines of code naming the headline, image, date and publisher.

Check every AMP page before launch. Adding #development=1 to the end of an AMP address and opening the browser's developer console lists any errors that would stop Google using it.

A worked example

An executive coach publishes an article every two weeks on a WordPress site: problems her clients face in their first year as managers, each ending with an invitation to book a first conversation.

She read about the carousel on Wednesday and asked whether she was missing out.

The AMP plugin was tried on a copy of the site. The AMP versions kept the text and the main photograph, and lost the booking button, the newsletter sign-up, her photograph in the sidebar and the related articles.

Her articles are not news, so the carousel was unlikely to show them, and her readers mostly arrive from her newsletter and from links that clients pass on.

She decided against AMP for now. Her normal article pages were made faster instead: the oversized header photograph was resized and two plugins nobody used were removed.

AMP went on the list to revisit if Google starts showing it for searches beyond the news.

If you do publish news

A community news site, a trade publication or a business that genuinely breaks stories in its field should test AMP now.

Start with the plugin on a copy of the site, then check the design, the ads and the analytics on real phones before switching it on for everyone.

Keep the normal page as the main version. Each AMP page names the normal one as its original, so search engines know which to treat as the article and links to either are not split.

After launch, compare what AMP readers do next with readers of the normal pages. Fewer routes onward is the price of the speed, and it is worth knowing how much it costs you.

What AMP does not change

Ordinary search results still list ordinary pages. AMP is about one carousel, for one kind of search, on phones.

Readers who arrive from newsletters, social media and links on other sites still land on the normal page.

That page is still what most of your readers see, and its speed still matters to every one of them.

Nor does AMP make a slow site fast. It adds a fast second copy of some articles, and the pages people actually browse stay exactly as they were.

The counter-case

For a publisher whose stories are news, waiting has a cost. The carousel sits near the top of the results, and competitors who appear in it are getting the taps.

A publisher who lives on article traffic and advertising should test now rather than later, and accept the design and ad compromises in exchange for the reach.

For a service business with an advice blog, the honest answer today is that AMP can wait, and that a fast ordinary page serves every reader from every source.

Before installing anything

  1. Search your topics on a phone for the carousel.
  2. Decide honestly whether you publish news.
  3. Test the plugin on a copy of the site.
  4. Compare the AMP page with the normal one.
  5. Add analytics and article markup before launch.
  6. Check your ads appear on AMP pages.
  7. Speed up your normal pages either way.

Step two settles most of it. If your articles are not news, the carousel is not where they will appear, and the time is better spent on the pages everyone sees.

One change that already lightens normal pages on phones is covered in responsive images arrived with WordPress 4.4.

Frequently asked questions

What is an AMP page?

A pared-back version of an article, built to strict rules with no custom scripts and little styling, so it loads almost at once. Google stores it and serves it itself.

Where do AMP pages appear in Google?

Since Wednesday, in the Top stories carousel on phones, for searches about current events, marked with a small lightning bolt. Ordinary results still list ordinary pages.

Does a service business need AMP?

Rarely for now. Advice articles are not news, so the carousel is unlikely to show them. Making the normal pages fast helps every visitor from every source.

What does a publisher lose with AMP?

Much of the design, most forms and sign-ups, some ad formats and networks, and the site's own address, since carousel readers see Google's copy.

How can a WordPress site try AMP?

With the free AMP plugin, tested on a copy of the site first. It covers posts, not pages, and needs analytics, article markup and design work before launch.

Will AMP replace my normal pages?

No. AMP versions sit alongside the normal pages, which still appear in ordinary results and remain what readers from newsletters, social media and other sites see.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Publishing news on WordPress?

Ask us to test AMP on a copy of your site. You will see what it keeps and what it drops before deciding.

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