What is AMP?
Google released Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP for short) in 2015 as a means for increasing site speed on mobile by serving stripped-down HTML versions of your website pages. At a time when speed tools were relatively new and 3G was still common, AMP was a simple way to speed up the mobile version of your site. Google also gave AMP an SEO boost, as it was a requirement for things like Top Stories.
While AMP was faster compared to mobile themes at the time, its stripped-down structure meant that much of the ad bidding process was removed. Because of this, a majority of advertisers decided to not bid on AMP, causing those pages to earn at around half the rate of a traditional mobile theme.
Is AMP still the best option today?
The publishing industry is significantly different from how it was back in 2015. Themes are now built with reader experience in mind, new speed tools are widely available and easier to use than ever, and 4G is the new norm with 5G just around the corner. The release of Core Web Vitals in 2021 gave site owners the clarity they needed to focus on the metrics that matter and achieve passing Core Web Vitals scores on mobile without AMP.
Almost all site owners in our network and across the industry have moved away from AMP and back to traditional mobile themes in order to recapture that lost revenue. Google is aware of this shift and has removed the need for AMP as a requirement in order to gain access to SEO benefits such as Top Stories. Read more about that here.
Advertisers who decided to take a chance on AMP are slowly moving away from that platform and once again focusing their advertising spend on traditional mobile themes. As this continues, we expect to see earning potential gradually decrease on the AMP platform.
Should I use AMP?
The quick answer is no. All the designed benefits of AMP are either outdated or have been removed by Google. Given that performance has traditionally been lower and will likely continue to decrease in the future, we highly recommend not using AMP and focusing efforts instead on achieving passing Core Web Vitals scores on mobile. Check out this Help Center article for more information on Core Web Vitals.
While we don't recommend AMP, we can display ads on AMP pages. If you decide to implement AMP on your site, please reach out to our team before activating so we can make sure your site is set up to earn as well as possible through the AMP platform.