Google introduced Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) back in 2015 as an attempt to make web pages load faster on mobile devices. While an admirable enough goal, in the years since there’s been a lot of pushback regarding both how AMP is implemented and whether it really delivers on those speed promises. Last summer AMP’s future really started to look in doubt, as Google began removing the project’s lightning bolt symbol from search results and confirmed AMP wouldn’t be mandatory for pages to rank well. Now the other shoe’s dropping, as major publishers make it clear that AMP isn’t just unpopular — some are ready to dump it completely.
Vox, BuzzFeed’s Complex Networks, and BDG — the parent company of Bustle and several other sites — are contemplating walking away from AMP, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. Media executives believe getting rid of AMP permits more control over website appearance and ad placements, and the paper notes that AMP plays a central role in a lawsuit filed against Google in 2020.
More than a dozen states are listed as plaintiffs in that filing, which accuses the company of anticompetitive actions, including the very creation of AMP. The suit alleges that Google built its system to prevent digital publishers from using “header bidding,” which is widely viewed as a reliably profitable way to sell ad space. AMP — allegedly by design — won’t work correctly with header bidding. Publishers nevertheless found themselves forced to adopt it as standard, with Google promising benefits like faster page loading — even though the suit claims “Google employees knew that … AMP pages can actually load slower than other publisher speed optimization techniques.”
The WSJ notes that the Washington Post stopped publishing AMP pages in 2021 and says Vox Media’s chief revenue officer believes non-AMP pages will be better for subscription publications. If one thing holds publishers back from dropping it altogether, it’s the worry that search rankings will be affected, reducing web traffic — and losing money.
Google didn’t comment for the WSJ article but between eliminating the lightning symbol and the lawsuit, it’s beginning to feel like the company must know AMP is on the way out — eventually.
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