I’m tracking an important AMP update from Google Search: users who tap AMP results will now be sent directly to publisher-hosted AMP pages instead of cached AMP pages shown inside Google’s AMP viewer.
A Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land, “Starting today, we are updating how we connect users to AMP pages from Search, taking them directly to the AMP host pages.”
Google also made it clear that this is not a ranking change. AMP content will continue to rank like any other webpage, and Google said the serving and ranking of AMP content in Google Search and Google Discover will remain the same.
From my perspective, the practical value here is mostly on the publisher side. By sending searchers straight to the AMP host page, Google says publishers should have simpler analytics management and tracking, along with less maintenance work when creating and supporting AMP content.
Google told us it will continue to support the open-source AMPhtml format, and it also posted the update in its Search documentation.
I also think it’s worth noting how much AMP’s role has changed over time. AMP has not received preferential treatment in Google’s Top Stories for a while, and AMP pages are much less common to encounter than they once were. Search Engine Land even turned off AMP in 2021.
It has been a long time since I’ve had much reason to cover AMP closely, but this change matters because it shifts the user journey back to publisher-hosted pages while keeping AMP’s ranking treatment unchanged.
Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
Leave a Reply