We knew it was coming this week, but Google seems to be rolling it out a day earlier than expected.
We’ve known since early December that Google would start sending search traffic to Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) beginning sometime in February. Ad Age recently reported the launch would be on February 24, but people are already starting to see AMP pages being delivered by Google.
Is Google showing you AMP pages on your mobile device? Tell us what you think about the experience.
You’ll know if you see an AMP icon as in the image below.
Google is also now sending out emails telling people that Google Analytics now supports AMP analytics.
In a recent post on the Google Analytics blog, Google wrote:
Google says you should use a separate Google Analytics property to measure your AMP pages, which could be a bit of an inconvenience (my words, not theirs), but as they note, AMP is still a new technology, so give it time.
You can read more about AMP and analytics in a recent post on the AMP blog.
The company said its goals for AMP, as the project pertains to advertising, are to ensure that it works well with the business models of today and that it leaves plenty of space for innovation in the future.
“In the near term, our top priority is making sure that ad formats, features and measurement that publishers rely on work within the AMP environment,” said another post on the AMP blog. “When AMP launches on Google Search in February, it will include important, basic functionalities. These include the ability to traffic ads with ad servers of your choice, support for multiple demand sources and formats (including native ads), full control over ads placements, and viewability measurement. It also includes integration with 20+ ad tech vendors, all of whom are excited to participate in the AMP initiative.”
Google has been hosting a series of Hangouts around different aspects of AMP to help you get prepared the launch (and you can always implement after the launch). I’d also recommend perusing the AMP blog for more details on everything from how it handles ads and analytics to paywalls.
Google also has a new section in its Webmaster Help forums (via Search Engine Roundtable) where webmasters can ask questions about and discuss AMP. As Google’s John Mueller notes, they’re looking for feedback as well.
AMP is of course about letting websites build light-weight pages for their content, and is similar to Facebook’s Instant Articles that way. Facebook also announced a date last week for when it will let all publishers to take advantage of that.
Have you begun implementing AMP? Do you intend to? Let us know in the comments.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
