Googles "AMP-Project"

[felix]

Google today announced it's competitor to Facebooks "Instant Articles": "AMP"(Accelerared Mobile Pages)HTML. Based on open source technologies (Basically it's a set of Web Components and a JS-Framework that loads and caches resources) it seems very promising. As far as I understand media is cached, served and proxied by google (and some tech partners). 

Btw: processwire as a system could benefit from/partner with it, too: https://www.ampproject.org/faq/#accelerated-mobile-pages-9

I'm really looking forward to playing around with it. Anyone else already fired up his editor and started fiddling around?

[benbyf]

thanks for posting, not seen this.

First look, it sounds interesting but not really sure what they're trying to solve with it... also the first quote is worrying as it is mianly focused on advertising

[Werner Pilnei]

I think PW should offer a solution (module?) for AMP as the big WP already published a plugin. Google is pushing the AMP project as they pushed for https/spdy/. Now we got Let's encrypt (certificates for free). If we like it or not - Googles market share in search is (at least here in Germany) >90 % - so ignoring their moves is heroic but cuts you off the line.

As I understand we have to offer two versions of one page, a regular one and a AMP-Version. Depending on the the requesting hardware (phone/tablet/desktop) Google (or any other search machine?) offers the appropriate page in the SERP. This leads to two different templates for a page, two URLs and a crosswise linking of the pages.

So what would be needed in PW is the ability to assign a second (plus third,plus...) template to the content page, where each template is assigned a separate URL (or prefix/suffix) .

As I am not a coder I'd appreciate the help of the community.

[benbyf]

sounds to me like a good cause but a bad way to "force" people to do it. You can already do this in PW templates, so knock yourself out. I just see this going the way of the Dodo (or google wave so I wouldnt recommend.

[LostKobrakai]

@Werner

ProcessWire does not control the data structure as well as the output of your website. This is very different to a blogging website like Wordpress, where content is very much determined upfront. If you need AMP you'd need to implement it yourself.

But ProcessWire is fully equipped to do the thing the wp plugin does. Allow urlSegments for your templates and allow 'amp' as urlSegment. Then you can use this to output the amp code in your template:

if($input->urlSegment1) { // add "&& $input->urlSegment1 == 'amp'" if you've more urlSegments
  // Output AMP
} else {
  // You're previous template code
}

Your url www.example.com/some/site/ will be the normal page, www.example.com/some/site/amp/ will be the amp site. I'm just not sure how google is supposed to know about this amp website in the first place.

[Werner Pilnei]

@LostKobrakai: Danke!

Google can find the AMP page via a link you should place on every standard-page (directing to its AMP-sister). More info on this:

https://www.ampproject.org/docs/guides/discovery.html

The remark on the Wordpress plugin was more a 'political statement'. If it is very easy for the millions of Wordpress users to make use of AMP they will use it. As Google stated they will favour AMP sites in mobile SERPs from now on I think it is worth to keep an eye on what is going to happen in the near future.

[Peter Knight]

@LostKobrakai: Danke!

Google can find the AMP page via a link you should place on every standard-page (directing to its AMP-sister). 

That's very interesting. I've been following the AMP news closely and wondered if a blog post had to be either a "normal" html page OR an AMP page.

I assumed you shouldn't have both as Google doesn't like duplicate content but perhaps it's allowable for AMP pages?

[Werner Pilnei]

@Peter:

duplicate content is not an issue as you also need to have a canonical link on the AMP page, directing to the 'full' page. So Google is fully aware of the two pages - they actually asked for a 'separate mobile content', didn't they?

Basically nothing really new. There were days when we had seperate mobile sites, and our server selcted what content to be sent out. Now again we have two different offerings/pages, and Google does the pick.

[Can]

Why aren't they supporting development and browser support of normal html5 css3 things like <picture> and srcset?

Instead coming up with yet another html specification seems ... (crazy?)

But as benbyf stated it's again about money.. 

[gurkendoktor]

when I first read about AMP I thought it's writing HTML like it's 1999. There's more to it. 

[Can]

Guess I need to dig more into it..but still feels like there's aaaalways something better....

Maybe you got time to share some of your enlightenments? 

[alp9000]

AMP forces you to make your mobile pages lightweight, but that's a choice you can make without using AMP.  It seems like the caching system is the only real advantage. Like most of you, I can't really see the point yet.

[gmclelland]

Lullabot wrote a good Drupal specific article on the subject: https://www.lullabot.com/articles/amping-up-drupal  They also released a PHP library https://github.com/Lullabot/amp-library that might help.

[anttila]

I think mobile content should load fast and every useless piece should be disabled if possible.

 

But I don't really understand why we can't just do everything AMP style and forget the old ways? Browsers can support it and if I don't have any elements which are banned, then why should I do normal page? I want always optimise my content and websites, but I don't really like double content or double work.

 

I can confirm that LostKobrakai's way to do this seems to be best practise but I think fixing only the elements that needs to be fixed is a better way than put everything to AMP or normal. At least for me because I have a lot of templates and code.

 

I just do my first AMP version.

 

amp-iframe: Must be at least 600px or 75% of the first viewport away from the top.

This is not nice for me because I always put YouTube video to top of the page (embed video - title - info - body), because that is very important for me. So now it must be the last.

[krisj]

This is essentially the reason why everyone should be paying a lot of attention to AMP project. It is a huge amount of best practices and issues that AMP solves that makes it interesting. https://medium.com/@cramforce/why-amp-is-fast-7d2ff1f48597

[gmclelland]

Here is some interesting ways that the Modx CMS is AMPifying their content https://www.sepiariver.ca/blog/modx-web/amp-ify-your-modx-site/

Here is how Wordpress seems to be handling it https://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/installing-amp-in-wordpress--cms-26272 

[Beluga]

There have been a couple of these sorts of articles lately: https://80x24.net/post/the-problem-with-amp/

Quote

Google’s goals with the AMP Project are laudable, but there are major security and UX concerns that need to be addressed. In its current form, AMP is bad for the open web and should be changed or eliminated.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2016/11/removing-your-site-from-amp/
 

Quote

 

AMP is Google's attempt to re-fight the transcoding wars of the early 2000s.

It is actively dangerous to the web ecosystem, helps disseminate propaganda, and is disliked by many users.

If, like me, you made the mistake of trying out AMP on your website - you're in a tricky position if you try to remove it. Google doesn't like anything leaving its clutches.

After a few weeks of AMP, I decided that it wasn't suitable for me. So I uninstalled the WordPress plugin. That's when the problems started.

 

 

[Kemal]

Hi,

is there any module or tutorial about amp pages for processwire?

I want to make an amp version  of my regular page.

My idea is create a new template file(amptemplate.php) coded with amp html 

i will create a folder named "Amp" on admin panel and connect that template for child pages

is it works?

 

[Can]

you don't need another template..you can use urlSegments for this and then if /amp/ is appended to the url you output amp content..without the url segment you can then output normal html which is recommended (to have both)

[szabesz]

FYI. Well worth the read:

https://www.i-programmer.info/news/81-web-general/12149-google-gives-amp-open-governance-still-not-good-enough.html

"It doesn't matter if Google hands AMP over to an entirely benevolent foundation, as long as Google is adjusting its search and hosting the cache, it has too much control. The web served by Google isn't an open and free web, it is a walled garden in waiting."

[pwired]

 

Quote

The web served by Google isn't an open and free web, it is a walled garden in waiting."

Not trying to hijack this Google AMP thread but one should read this too about Google:
Trying to setup a censored search engine in china where search results on democracy and human rights are made invisible.
Internal memos about this subject by Google employees who try to make this public news are forced to delete these memos.
Source: the intercept

[szabesz]

More on this: https://www.i-programmer.info/news/81-web-general/12700-google-attempts-to-fix-amp-makes-it-worse.html

Quote: "AMP is a walled garden under construction."

Sadly, macOS too:

https://www.i-programmer.info/news/201-ios/12681-is-the-walled-garden-about-to-close-around-macos.html

Quote:
"Beginning in macOS 10.14.5, all new or updated kernel extensions and all software from developers new to distributing with Developer ID must be notarized in order to run. In a future version of macOS, notarization will be required by default for all software. (A notarized app is a macOS app that was uploaded to Apple for processing before it was distributed.)"