Do you guys enable AMP for your pages?

I enabled the AMP plugin sometime ago since it was said Google liked it, it's faster, etc.

I noticed a lot of my competitors don't seem to be using the AMP version at all. How many of you use it and does anyone know if it actually makes any difference?

I also noticed that even with analytics enabled on the AMP pages, that when coming right from the Google serp since it's still on Google I guess analytics isn't loaded so I don't show the visitor in Analytics.

I also just realized a few mins ago that the AMP version was separate so it wasn't loading the analytics so I wasn't track the amp visitors so I guess positive in that I actually had far more visitors than I realized. I only mention this in case it helps anyone else.

I've never used it. I mean, I did install it about an year or so ago, but out of curiosity more than anything because I don't give a crap about mobile phones and AFAIK the AMP plugin deals with mobile phones specifically.

And few weeks after I've tested it, people said that it's not needed anymore. So yeah, I'm not using it....

Looking around, I'm haven't found another site in my niche even using amp. I put it in place a couple of years ago before mobile-first indexing and all and I'm considering dropping it but not because I'm the only one using it around my competitors (sometimes you can get advantages) but because for many mobile users searching they get the amp page but I don't see the visitors hitting the site. So the result loads instantly for a user (guessing its served from a google cache), but it would be nice for analytics to see the user.

I'm right now about 85% sure i'm going to drop AMP support since it appears there are little gains if any and some real downsides like not seeing people clicking on results in the SERPs on mobile.

Interestingly, getting rid of the AMP side takes a little work. Not the actual AMP pages themselves, but mobile devices potential visitors see the google-hosted AMP version.

I guess this is like doing a 301 to redirect a domain, etc. I'm going to redirect anything with the amp ending to the normal non-amp page and see if i can then request google to walk the amp page and update the SERP results with some luck.

I didn't really see undoing AMP anywhere so I'm writing this up here so maybe it'll be of some use to others that may have to tackle the same thing one day.

I use amp on my blog because it has 80% mobile traffic, so I thought it makes sense. But TBH, I don't know if there's a difference in SEO, just in site speed.

blogmen said:

I use amp on my blog because it has 80% mobile traffic, so I thought it makes sense. But TBH, I don't know if there's a difference in SEO, just in site speed.

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Page speed is definitely instant since Google is presenting the page. It still has your links, etc. It does appear Google strips out the javascript. So the cached amp page won't have ads or analytics. Also with AMP you won't see the visitor unless they go beyond the amp page that is the result in the SERPs.

I did do some reading and it appears that amp is not mentioned in the most recent Google docs from this year so it's not a pre-requisite to get into the news stories across the top (if that matters). So Google isn't pushing amp quite as hard now. It doesn't seem to be in and of itself a SEO difference as long as the user can use the page ok.

The cached page (which can be out of date) can be an issue and where it rips out javascript can really be an issue if you use for instance the amazon javascript that loads the price and such dynamically. in the amp page the amazon ad would just be missing.

So for an informational page you lose ads, but if you have say an affiliate product type page the amp may work very well in your favor.

So there are some real pros and cons I hadn't considered before. I just took amp off of this one site because I am working on it to sell it so having better traffic numbers and having the information SERP landing pages with ads will work to my benefit but I can see where there isn't a one-size-fits-all on this one.

Zooker said:

So the cached amp page won't have ads or analytics

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Not sure about this. I have ads integrated with AMP from within Google Adsense dashboard so they definitely show.

blogmen said:

Not sure about this. I have ads integrated with AMP from within Google Adsense dashboard so they definitely show.

Click to expand...

It might be that i was using the amazon native ads and google allows their own. good to know about adsense thanks.

After looking at logs and such I have to revise my own opinion a little. I found some amp-related errors where it mentions script so I think in reality the amp plugin was tossing out the amazon native ads as not being valid script for the amp specs so I believe the issue was more on my end.

Plus side, I just learned way more about amp pages than I knew before

Thanks for the help folks in my little amp-knowledge journey.