Google recently launched an open-source project that will improve web performance for pages on the internet called AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages. The project will strip down pages such that “documents would not include any author-written JavaScript, nor any third-party scripts”, making them to load faster across the interwebs and of course, making readers use less data while surfing the interwebs.
AMP is essentially Google’s version of HTML – a new protocol for building for the web – that will allow publishers render their content more quickly. The project uses an open repository – available on Github. Of course, this is good for readers who crave faster downloads and pages that consume less data, but Google may be the biggest winner here.
AMP is coming on the heels of Apple integrating support for ad blocking apps into its iOS 9. But that’s not the only factor forcing this move from Google.
Google is fighting a battle on three fronts over the destination of fresh content on the internet and the impact of that on its ad business.
Aside Apple’s ad-blocking crusade made more threatening with the support of ad-blockers in iOS 9, there is Facebook with instant articles. This allows Facebook partner with publishers to publish directly on its platform which will result in faster load times and ad free content. Google suffers here because content published within Facebook’s walled garden reduces the amount of content available for search on the engine. Apple (again) poses the same challenge with Apple News that also bundles with iOS 9 and the recently-launched Twitter Moments throws its own wrench in the mix.
Ad-blockers have been known to cause pages load up to 4x faster and with 50% less data strain, but AMP – which already integrates Google Ads by the way – is also “seeing performance improvements measured through Speed Index between 15% and 85%,” according to Google.
Publishers of course are not forced to comply by the new protocol, but for those feeling the strain of ad-blocking, it could be a way to monetize via ads and still keep pages optimized. For most users who have deployed ad-blocking apps since Apple allowed them on iOS 9, the advantage has been load time and data strain.
AMP effectively addresses that pain point and more importantly, keeps its ad business running.
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