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    UkiahSmith avatar UkiahSmith 7 months ago | link | on: A letter about Google AMP

    Having looked over AMP and seeing all the different points it does not seem as bad as people make it out to be, at least from a technical point of view.

    These are the two main points of contention.

    1. Content that “opts in” to AMP and the associated hosting within Google’s domain is granted preferential search promotion, including (for news articles) a position above all other results.
    2. When a user navigates from Google to a piece of content Google has recommended, they are, unwittingly, remaining within Google’s ecosystem.

    The first does not bother me so much. It is a standardized way of limiting page size growth, and enforcing best practices for speed. It is a formal way to enforce getting 90 on a webpage speed test. Google has used speed as a ranking factor for awhile now.

    The second point does have some issue. Originally the address of the page was obscured when it was served from Google’s servers, and that, in my opinion, is not great. This has now been, somewhat, resolved. While it still connects the user and the publisher, Google is overstepping it’s middleman role.

    I don’t like the idea of Google hosting cached versions of my content, but I can live with it.

    Will someone expand on the AMP cache, and explain why it is a more horrible thing than I currently understand?

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      sinemetu11 avatar sinemetu11 7 months ago | link

      Re: the AMP cache, there might be other reasons, but I think it creates an unfair playing field. It optimizes for people who have teams to rewrite/add to their templating code to fit AMP when there very well could be better more relevant content that is just managed by 1 person or non-tech people who would need to outsource.

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        UkiahSmith avatar UkiahSmith 7 months ago | link

        I see where that could be the case in some situations, but let me play devil’s advocate for a moment and say; AMP makes it easier for a single person to optimize a website. As a specific set of rules, it is easier to create layouts, and the validation tools help guide one to a speedy websites. Using the specific set of rules is more straightforward than having to know a ton of micro-optimizations, and how they all need to fit together.

        I just added AMP to my website. I based the AMP pages on my existing layout, and only had to change a few things. All together it took me about three days.

        But I came here to share this:

        TL;DR: We are making changes to how AMP works in platforms such as Google Search that will enable linked pages to appear under publishers’ URLs instead of the google.com/amp URL space while maintaining the performance and privacy benefits of AMP Cache serving.

        https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/01/09/improving-urls-for-amp-pages/amp/

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      sinemetu11 avatar sinemetu11 7 months ago | link | on: Off-Topic Reading Recommendations

      The Human Factor - long-form article from vanity fair on how airplanes mostly fly themselves and the crash of Air France Flight 447.

      24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep

      Lean Out: The Struggle for Gender Equality in Tech and Start-Up Culture

      Mathematics, Form and Function

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        mbiven avatar mbiven 7 months ago | link

        If you liked Langewiesche’s writing on flight 447 you’ll like this. Chilren of the Magenta