What does AMP actually mean? During an SEO analysis you encounter an AMP report, but what does it mean? How does it work and do I need to activate it or not?
What is AMP and how important is it for website?
What is AMP and what does it stand for?
Many people wonder: what is AMP? AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. AMP helps you create mobile friendly content. A leaner version of a web page that loads less important elements of a website later, significantly reducing the loading time of a website.
The optimized mobile content is loaded more directly and therefore faster. AMP is a project of various parties such as Google, Adsense, New York Times and Twitter.
Now you know what AMP is, but what does it mean?
You know the definition of what is AMP! But what exactly is it? They are optimized pages that load faster on mobile devices.
AMP ensures that the minimum required elements of a website are immediately loaded and less important elements are loaded later and cached by Google. The pages are then loaded from a server that is as close as possible to the receiver.
Elements are only downloaded when it is likely that they will be seen. This can include advertisements and images. The elements are also loaded later than the content.
How do you recognize an AMP website?
An AMP website can be recognized by the AMP icon that appears in Google search results when you surf on a mobile phone. The condition is of course that AMP pages are available for the search query entered.
The image below shows an example of a mobile website with AMP in the Google search results. Now you no longer have to ask yourself; what is AMP ?!
Implement an AMP website; what are you paying attention to?
When implementing an AMP website there are a number of things that need to be taken into account :
- A canonical tag is needed from the AMP version to your original version for Google’s indexing. The AMP version is then cached by Google.
- The use of Javascript is not allowed.
- Plug-ins are available that can activate AMP. For example in WordPress. Do you work with CMS? Then you will have to get started yourself without having to plug in or ask a website builder for help.
- Finally, it is recommended to add / amp to the relevant url.
AMP website; what you need to know?
Do you have to activate an AMP website or not? The choice is yours! AMP is interesting when your website contains a lot of content. AMP offers a lot of progress in that case. AMP ensures that content is displayed faster and other, less important, elements are loaded later. Especially blogs with many visitors and news sites are benefiting.
The other side of the story is that not only Google, but also social media platforms will use AMP to speed up loading time. Think of LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest. AMP is also not a ranking factor, but a page with AMP (with a canonical tag) contributes to the quality of your website.
Also useful to know; AMP does not have to be activated on all pages of a website. When a link is placed from an AMP version to a non-AMP version, Google understands that a responsive version of the link must be taken.
The big question; do you activate AMP or not? Opinions about AMP are divided. There are big proponents, but also opponents. AMP has advantages if your website contains a lot of content and the loading speed leaves something to be desired. The choice is yours!
