What is AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)?

You’ve probably noticed that some websites load very quickly on your smartphone, while others struggle to deliver a smooth experience. This difference not only affects your browsing comfort, but also influences the conversion rate and search engine visibility of these sites. To improve the user experience, Google launched the open-source Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project in 2016.

What exactly is Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), and how can it transform your website’s mobile experience?

We’ve put together a comprehensive introductory guide to mastering the basics of AMP, detailing its benefits for your online presence, how it works underneath, and how to easily implement the technology.

The AMP format represents a major technological advance, facilitating the creation of mobile-optimized web pages. These pages, loaded at lightning speed, are designed to dramatically enhance the user experience.

What are the benefits of AMP for your website?

The benefits of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology are considerable for any type of website, whether it’s a content publishing site, an e-commerce site or a personal blog. Using this technology considerably optimizes your visibility and performance on the mobile web.

Faster page loading

The main advantage of AMP pages is their ability to load much faster than traditional pages on mobile. Google data reveals that AMP pages load up to four times faster.

This is mainly due to their simplified design, which reduces the use of heavy resources such as JavaScript and CSS, and to their hosting in Google’s cache, which improves loading speed and reduces data usage.

Improved search engine ranking

Adopting AMP pages can also improve your site’s ranking in Google. While AMP format is not a ranking criterion in itself, loading speed is. Google favors sites offering a superior user experience, where speed plays a key role.

Increased engagement and conversion rates

Another notable advantage of AMP pages is their ability to improve user engagement and conversion rates on your site. The optimized navigation and speed offered by AMP reduce bounce rates and encourage consultation of more content.

This improved user experience can translate into increased traffic, subscribers, leads and even sales.

A Google study reports a 10% increase in web traffic and a doubling of time spent on pages for sites using AMP, while e-commerce platforms record a 20% increase in sales and conversions compared with standard pages.

How does AMP work?

Let’s find out how AMP pages work, their unique characteristics and how they differ from traditional mobile pages. You’ll discover that AMP pages rest on three fundamental pillars: structure, caching and content distribution.

Structure of an AMP page

An AMP page is a web page that conforms to the standards and conditions defined by Google, aimed at maximizing its lightness and speed.

These standards are as follows:

• Adoption of HTML AMP, a lighter version of HTML with specific tags and attributes.
• The use of AMP JS, a specialized JavaScript library for AMP pages, excluding external or custom scripts.
• Use of the AMP CDN, a content distribution network that loads AMP pages directly from Google servers.
• Compliance with performance best practices, such as reducing image size and optimizing resource loading.

By respecting these guidelines, an AMP page becomes compatible with all browsers, while enjoying the benefits of AMP caching and content distribution.

AMP Cache and Content Rendering

The AMP cache is a system for storing AMP pages on Google’s servers, which offers several advantages:

• It reduces latency by avoiding requests to the AMP page source server.
• It improves performance through automatic page transformations, such as compression or preloading.
• It guarantees security, thanks to the HTTPS protocol and verification that pages comply with AMP standards.

Content distribution refers to the process of making AMP pages available to users. It relies mainly on :

• The AMP carousel, integrated into the Google search results page, which presents AMP content in the form of horizontal thumbnails.
• The AMP player, an interface that opens after a click on a thumbnail, displaying the AMP page full-screen with a top navigation bar.

This system increases the visibility of AMP pages in Google search results and offers a better reading experience.

What are the differences between a standard mobile page and an AMP page?

Unlike standard mobile pages, which are adapted to mobile screens via responsive design without language or framework constraints, AMP pages must comply with strict standards, limiting use to AMP HTML, AMP JS and AMP CDN without customization. They can integrate interactive elements exclusively via AMP components.

Here are the main differences:

Standard mobile page	AMP page
Freedom of design and development	AMP standards constraints
Performance influenced by integrated elements	Performance optimized by AMP caching and content distribution
Regular visibility in searches	Enhanced visibility via AMP carousel and AMP player

In short, an AMP page offers a better mobile experience, while requiring compliance with AMP standards, which can restrict web creativity and personalization.

Frequently asked questions