Google Integrates AMP Into Mobile Search Results

08-08-2016Tags: SEO, Websites

Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) are now live in mobile search results. What does this mean for your website, and its mobile search rankings?

Over the past twelve months the digital marketing sector has been obsessed with mobile search engine optimisation (SEO). Google’s announcement that mobile-friendly websites would benefit from a major algorithm update was the driving force behind the mobile SEO obsession.

AMP is the latest focus

Google AMP is an open source project designed to help create mobile-optimised content that loads instantly on all devices. In a blog post Google said, “We want webpages with rich content like video, animations and graphics to load instantaneously.”

When browsing on a mobile device, AMP is identified by a lightning bolt icon before the page description in the mobile search results.

'Top Stories'

In February 2016, Google officially integrated AMP via a ‘Top Stories’ carousel at the top of mobile search results. This meant that AMP was initially focused upon news stories from online media publishers, before AMP was embraced by a range of other website publishers from WordPress and Reddit to eBay and Shopify.

Integrated into main mobile search results

This month, Google has announced that AMP will move beyond ‘Top Stories’ and feature within the main organic mobile search results. This development enables AMP to extend beyond news stories into e-commerce, travel, cooking and entertainment, amongst other categories.

Not currently an SEO ranking factor

Whilst AMP does not currently act as a mobile ranking factor, David Besbris, Google’s VP of Engineering, suggests that load time and page speed will become prominent ranking factors. As a primary objective of AMP, these two factors will become very important in mobile SEO.

For more information on AMP, please visit the Amp Project website.