Google Images has made a series of changes to help people explore, learn and do more through visual search. An important element of visual search is the ability for users to scan many ideas before coming to a decision, whether it’s purchasing a product, learning more about a stylish room, or finding instructions for a DIY project. Often this involves loading many web pages, which can slow down a search considerably and prevent users from completing a task.
As previewed at Google I/O, we’re launching a new AMP-powered feature in Google Images on the mobile web, Swipe to Visit, which makes it faster and easier for users to browse and visit web pages. After a Google Images user selects an image to view on a mobile device, they will get a preview of the website header, which can be easily swiped up to load the web page instantly.
Swipe to Visit uses AMP's prerender capability to show a preview of the page displayed at the bottom of the screen. When a user swipes up on the preview, the web page is displayed instantly and the publisher receives a pageview. The speed and ease of this experience makes it more likely for users to visit a publisher's site, while still allowing users to continue their browsing session.
Publishers who support AMP don’t need to take any additional action for their sites to appear in Swipe to Visit on Google Images. Publishers who don’t support AMP can learn more about getting started with AMP here. In the coming weeks, publishers can also view their traffic data from AMP in Google Images in a Search Console’s performance report for Google Images in a new search area named “AMP on Image result”.
We look forward to continuing to support the Google Images ecosystem with features that help users and publishers alike.
Today we are rolling out support in Google Search’s AMP web results (also known as “blue links”) to link to signed exchanges, an emerging new feature of the web enabled by the IETF web packaging specification. Signed exchanges enable displaying the publisher’s domain when content is instantly loaded via Google Search. This is available in browsers that support the necessary web platform feature—as of the time of writing, Google Chrome—and availability will expand to include other browsers as they gain support (e.g. the upcoming version of Microsoft Edge).
One of AMP's biggest user benefits has been the unique ability to instantly load AMP web pages that users click on in Google Search. Near-instant loading works by requesting content ahead of time, balancing the likelihood of a user clicking on a result with device and network constraints–and doing it in a privacy-sensitive way.
We believe that privacy-preserving instant loading web content is a transformative user experience, but in order to accomplish this, we had to make trade-offs; namely, the URLs displayed in browser address bars begin with google.com/amp, as a consequence of being shown in the Google AMP Viewer, rather than display the domain of the publisher. We heard both user and publisher feedback over this, and last year we identified a web platform innovation that provides a solution that shows the content’s original URL while still retaining AMP's instant loading.
A signed exchange is a file format, defined in the web packaging specification, that allows the browser to trust a document as if it belongs to your origin. This allows you to use first-party cookies and storage to customize content and simplify analytics integration. Your page appears under your URL instead of the google.com/amp URL.
Google Search links to signed exchanges when the publisher, browser, and the Search experience context all support it. As a publisher, you will need to publish both the signed exchange version of the content in addition to the non-signed exchange version. Learn more about how Google Search supports signed exchange.
Many publishers have already begun to publish signed exchanges since the developer preview opened up last fall. To implement signed exchanges in your own serving infrastructure, follow the guide “Serve AMP using Signed Exchanges” available at amp.dev.
If you use a CDN provider, ask them if they can provide AMP signed exchanges. Cloudflare has recently announced that it is offering signed exchanges to all of its customers free of charge.
Check out our resources like the webmaster community or get in touch with members of the AMP Project with any questions. You can also provide feedback on the signed exchange specification.
To improve our users' experience with AMP results, we are making changes to how we enforce our policy on content parity with AMP. Starting Feb 1, 2018, the policy requires that the AMP page content be comparable to the (original) canonical page content. AMP is not a ranking signal and there is no change in terms of the ranking policy with respect to AMP.
The open source accelerated mobile pages project (AMP) launched in 2015 and has seen tremendous growth with over 25M domains having implemented the AMP format. This rapid progress comes with a sense of responsibility of ensuring that our users continue to have a great content consumption experience that ultimately leads to more engagement with publisher content.
In some cases, webmasters publish two versions of their content: a canonical page that is not based on AMP and an AMP page. In the ideal scenario, both these pages have equivalent content leading the user to get the same content but with a faster and smoother experience via AMP. However, in some cases the content on the AMP page does not match the content on its original (canonical) page.
In a small number of cases, AMP pages are used as teaser pages which create a particularly bad user experience since they only contain minimal content. In these instances, users have to click twice to get to the real content. Below is an example of how this may look like: a brief text of the main article and then asking the user to click to visit another page to complete reading the article.
AMP was introduced to dramatically improve the performance of the web and deliver a fast, consistent content consumption experience. 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.
Where we find that an AMP page doesn't contain the same critical content as its non-AMP equivalent, we will direct our users to the non-AMP page. This does not affect Search ranking. However, these pages will not be considered for Search features that require AMP, such as the Top Stories carousel with AMP. Additionally, we will notify the webmaster via Search console as a manual action message and give the publisher the opportunity to fix the issue before its AMP page can be served again. The AMP open source website has several helpful guides to help produce fast, beautiful and high-performing AMP pages.
We hope this change encourages webmasters to maintain content parity between the canonical and AMP equivalent. This will lead to better experience on your site and ultimately happier users.
At Google I/O in May, we launched Rich Cards for Movies and Recipes, creating a new way for site owners to present previews of their content on the Search results page. Today, we’re expanding to two new verticals for US-based sites: Local restaurants and Online courses.
Evolution of search results for queries like [best New Orleans restaurants] and [leadership courses]: with rich cards, results are presented in new UIs, like carousels that are easy to browse by scrolling left and right, or a vertical three-pack that displays more individual courses
By building Rich Cards, you have a new opportunity to attract more engaged users to your page. Users can swipe through restaurant recommendations from sites like TripAdvisor, Thrillist, Time Out, Eater, and 10Best. In addition to food, users can browse through courses from sites like Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, EdX, Harvard, Udacity, FutureLearn, Edureka, Open University, Udemy, Canvas Network, and NPTEL.
If you have a site that contains local restaurant information or offers online courses, check out our developer docs to start building Rich Cards in the Local restaurant and Online courses verticals.
While AMP HTML is not required for Local restaurant pages and Online Courses rich cards, AMP provides Google Search users with a consistently fast experience, so we recommend that you create AMP pages to further engage users. Users consuming AMP’d content will be able to swipe near instantly from restaurant to restaurant or from recipe to recipe within your site.
Users who tap on your Rich Card will be taken near instantly to your AMP page, and be able to swipe between pages within your site.
Check out our developer site for implementation details.
To make it easier for you to create Rich Cards, we made some changes in our tools:
What’s next?
We are actively experimenting with new verticals globally to provide more opportunities for you to display richer previews of your content.
If you have questions, find us in the dedicated Structured data section of our forum, on Twitter or on Google+.
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a great way to make content on your website accessible in an extremely fast way. To help ensure that your AMP implementation is working as expected , Search Console now has an enhanced AMP testing tool.
This testing tool is mobile-friendly and uses Google's live web-search infrastructure to analyze the AMP page with the real Googlebot. The tool tests the validity of the AMP markup as well as any structured data on the page. If issues are found, click on them to see details, and to have the line in the source-code highlighted. For valid AMP pages, we may also provide a link to a live preview of how this page may appear in Google's search results.
With the share button on the bottom right, you can now share a snapshot of the results that you're currently seeing with others. This makes it easier to discuss issues with your team, whether they're regular occurrences or one-time quirks that you need to iron out. Just click the share button and pass on the URL for this test snapshot. This share feature is now also available in the mobile-friendly testing tool.
We hope this tool makes it easier to create great AMP’d content while finding and resolving issues that may appear on your AMP pages. For any questions, feel free to drop by our webmaster's help forum.
It has been busy here at Google Webmaster Central over the last few weeks, covering a lot of details about Accelerated Mobile Pages that we hope you have found useful. The topics have included:
We’ve also been seeing a few AMP questions coming to the Webmaster forums about getting started using AMP on Google Search. To help, we’ve compiled some of the most common questions we’ve seen:
Q: I’m considering creating AMP pages for my website. What is the benefit? What types of sites and pages is AMP for?
Users love content that loads fast and without any fuss - using the AMP format may make it more compelling for people to consume and engage with your content on mobile devices. Research has shown that 40% of users abandon a site that takes more than three seconds to load. The Washington Post observed an 88% decrease in article loading time and a 23% increase in returning users from mobile search from adopting AMP.
The AMP format is great for all types of static web content such as news, recipes, movie listings, product pages, reviews, videos, blogs and more.
Q: We are getting errors logged in Search Console for AMP pages; however, we already fixed these issues. Why are we still seeing errors?
The short answer is that changes to your AMP pages take about a week to be updated in Search Console. For a more in-depth answer on why, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller shared a detailed post on Search Console latency challenges.
Q: Our AMP pages are not showing up on Google Search. What should we do?
Only valid AMP pages will be eligible to show on Google Search. Check the validity of your AMP pages by using the AMP HTML Web Validator, the Chrome or Opera Extension or through a more automated process such as a cron job to make sure all new content is valid.
While it’s good practise overall to include schema.org structured data in your AMP pages (we recommend JSON-LD), it's especially important for news publishers. News content that includes valid markup properties are eligible to be shown within the Top Stories section in Google Search results. To test your structured data, try using the structured data testing tool.
If you have more questions that are not answered here, share your feedback in the comments below or on our Google Webmasters Google+ page. Or as usual, feel free to post in our Webmasters Help Forum.
Here is our list of the top 8 things to consider when helping your clients AMPlify their websites (and staying ahead of their curiosity!) after our announcement to expand support for Accelerated Mobile Pages.
If a site uses a popular Content Management System (CMS), getting AMP pages up and running is as straightforward as installing a plug-in. Sites that use custom HTML or that are built from scratch will require additional development resources.
AMP is great for all types of static web content such as news, recipes, movie listings, product pages, reviews, videos, blogs and more. AMP is less useful for single-page apps that are heavy on dynamic or interactive features, such as route mapping, email or social networks.
Add AMP to a client's existing site progressively by starting with simple, static content pages like articles, products, or blog posts. These are the “leaf” pages that users access through platforms and search results, and could be simple changes that also bring the benefits of AMP to the website. This approach allows you to keep the homepage and other “browser” pages that might require advanced, non-AMP dynamic functionality.
If you're creating a new, content-heavy website from scratch, consider building the whole site with AMP from the start. To begin with, check out the getting started guidelines.
If a site's use case is not supported in the AMP format yet, consider filing a feature request on GitHub, or you could even design a component yourself.
In order to appear in Google’s search results, AMP pages need only be valid AMP HTML. Some products integrating AMP might have further requirements than the AMP validation. For example, you'll need to mark up your AMP pages as Article markup with Structured Data to make them eligible for the Google Top Stories section.
Whether a page or site has valid and eligible AMP pages has no bearing on the site’s ranking on the Search results page. The difference is that web results that have AMP versions will be labeled with an icon.
AMP search results on Google will be rolling out worldwide when it launches in the coming weeks. The Top Stories carousel which shows newsy and fresh AMP content is already available in a number of countries and languages.
There’s a whole host of useful resources that will help if you have any questions:
Webmasters Help Forum: Ask questions about AMP and Google’s implementation of AMP Stack Overflow: Ask technical questions about AMP GitHub: Submit a feature request or contribute
What are your top tips to #AMPlify pages? Let us know in the comments below or on our Google Webmasters Google+ page. Or as usual, if you have any questions or need help, feel free to post in our Webmasters Help Forum.
As you #AMPlify your site with Accelerated Mobile Pages, it’s important to keep an eye periodically on the validation status of your pages, as only valid AMP pages are eligible to show on Google Search.
When implementing AMP, sometimes pages will contain errors causing them to not be indexed by Google Search. Pages may also contain warnings that are elements that are not best practice or are going to become errors in the future.
Google Search Console is a free service that lets you check which of your AMP pages Google has identified as having errors. Once you know which URLs are running into issues, there are a few handy tools that can make checking the validation error details easier.
To use Developer Tools for validation:
Developer Console errors will look similar to this:
With the AMP Browser Extensions (available for Chrome and Opera), you can quickly identify and debug invalid AMP pages. As you browse your site, the extension will evaluate each AMP page visited and give an indication of the validity of the page.
When there are errors within an AMP page, the extension’s icon shows in a red color and displays the number of errors encountered.
When there are no errors within an AMP page, the icon shows in a green color and displays the number of warnings, if any exist.
When the page isn’t AMP but the page indicates that an AMP version is available, the icon shows in a blue color with a link icon, and clicking on the extension will redirect the browser to the AMP version.
Using the extensions means you can see what errors or warnings the page has by clicking on the extension icon. Every issue will list the source line, source column, and a message indicating what is wrong. When a more detailed description of the issue exists, a “Learn more” link will take you to the relevant page on ampproject.org.
The AMP Web Validator, available at validator.ampproject.org, provides a simple web UI to test the validity of your AMP pages.
To use the tool, you enter an AMP URL, or copy/paste your source code, and the web validator displays error messages between the lines. You can make edits directly in the web validator which will trigger revalidation, letting you know if your proposed tweaks will fix the problem.
What's your favourite way to check the status of your AMP Pages? Share your feedback in the comments below or on our Google Webmasters Google+ page. Or as usual, if you have any questions or need help, feel free to post in our Webmasters Help Forum.
If you have recently implemented Accelerated Mobile Pages on your site, it’s a great time to check which of your AMP pages Google has found and indexed by using Search Console.
Search Console is a free service that helps you monitor and maintain your site's presence in Google Search, including any Accelerated Mobile Pages. You don't have to sign up for Search Console for your AMP pages to be included in Google Search results, but doing so can help you understand which of your AMP pages are eligible to show in search results.
To get started with Search Console, create a free account or sign in here and validate the ownership of your sites.
Once you have your site set up on Search Console, open the Accelerated Mobile Pages report under Search Appearance > Accelerated Mobile Pages to see which AMP pages Google has found and indexed on your site, as shown here:
The report lists AMP-related issues for AMP pages that are not indexed, so that you can identify and address them.
Search Console also lets you monitor the performance of your AMP pages on Google Search in the Search Analytics report. This report tells you which queries show your AMP pages in Search results, lets you compare how their metrics stack against your other results and see how the visibility of your AMP pages has changed over time.
To view your AMP page metrics, such as clicks or impressions, select Search Appearance > Search Analytics > Filter by AMP.
(Note: if you’ve only just created your Search Console account or set up your AMP pages and they have not been detected yet, remember that Google crawls pages only periodically. You can wait for the scheduled regular recrawl, or you can request a recrawl.)
Have you been using Search Console to monitor your AMP pages? Give us feedback in the comments below or on our Google Webmasters Google+ page. Or as usual, if you have any questions or need help, feel free to post in our Webmasters Help Forum.
UPDATE: To help ensure that your AMP implementation is working as expected, Search Console now has an enhanced AMP testing tool.
It's 2016 and it's hard to believe that browsing the web on a mobile phone can still feel so slow with users abandoning sites that just don't load quickly. To us — and many in the industry — it was clear that something needed to change. That was why we started working with the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project, an open source initiative to improve the mobile web experience for everyone.
Less than six months ago, we started sending people to AMP pages in the “Top stories” section of the Google Search Results page on mobile phones. Since then, we’ve seen incredible global adoption of AMP that has gone beyond the news industry to include e-commerce, entertainment, travel, recipe sites and so on. To date we have more than 150 million AMP docs in our index, with over 4 million new ones being added every week. As a result, today we’re sharing an early preview of our expanded AMP support across the entire search results page --not just the “Top stories” section.
To clarify, this is not a ranking change for sites. As a result of the growth of AMP beyond publishers, we wanted to make it easier for people to access this faster experience. The preview shows an experience where web results that that have AMP versions are labeled with . When you tap on these results, you will be directed to the corresponding AMP page within the AMP viewer.
AMP in Search Preview
Try it out for yourself on your mobile device by navigating to g.co/ampdemo. Once you’re in the demo, search for something like “french toast recipe” or music lyrics by your favorite artist to experience how AMP can provide a speedier reading experience on the mobile web. The “Who” page on AMPProject.org has a flavor of some of the sites already creating AMP content.
We’re starting with a preview to get feedback from users, developers and sites so that we can create a better Search experience when we make this feature more broadly available later this year. In addition, we want to give everyone who might be interested in “AMPing up” their content enough time to learn how to implement AMP and to see how their content appears in the demo. And beyond developing AMP pages, we invite everyone to get involved and contribute to the AMP Project.
We can’t wait to hear from you as we work together to speed up the web. And as always, if you have any questions, please visit our webmaster forums.
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a global, industry-wide initiative, with publishers large and small all focused on the same goal: a better, faster mobile web.We’ve had a great response to our English language AMP office hours, but we know that English isn’t everyone’s native language.
For the next two weeks, we’re rolling out a new series of office hours in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, and Indonesian and invite everyone to learn about AMP in their native language. Product Managers, Technical Managers, & Engineers at Google, will get to speak in their native tongue, and answer any questions you may have on AMP.
First we will reintroduce you to AMP and how it works, before diving into the technical specs and various components of AMP. You can add your questions via the Q and A app on the event pages below, and we will answer them during the office hours. You can also watch them on the News Lab YouTube page after the event. Check out the lineup below and join the discussion.
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