[Infowarrior] - Google Will Stop Letting Sites Use AMP Format To Bait and Switch Readers

[Richard Forno]

Google Will Stop Letting Sites Use AMP Format To Bait and Switch Readers

Posted by BeauHD on Friday November 17, 2017 @02:00AM from the link-baiting dept.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/11/17/0046231/google-will-stop-letting-sites-use-amp-format-to-bait-and-switch-readers

"Google today announced a forthcoming update to its Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, web format that aims to discourage website owners from misusing the service," reports The Verge. "The company says that, starting in February 2018, AMP pages must contain content nearly identical to that of the standard page they're replicating." From the report: Currently, because AMP pages load faster and more clutter-free versions of a website, they naturally contain both fewer ads and less links to other portions of a site. That's led some site owners to publish two versions of a webpage: a standard page and an AMP-specific one that acts a teaser of sorts that directs users to the original. That original page, or canonical page in Google parlance, is by nature a slower loading page containing more ads and with a potentially lower bounce rate, which is the percentage of viewers who only view one page before leaving. Now, Google is cracking down on that behavior. "AMP was introduced to dramatically improve the performance of the web and deliver a fast, consistent content consumption experience," writes Ashish Mehta, an AMP product manager. "In keeping with this goal, we'll be enforcing the requirement of close parity between AMP and canonical page, for pages that wish to be shown in Google Search as AMPs."