
Response from Google Tech Lead, Re: “Google May Be Stealing Your Mobile Traffic” - akras14
https://www.alexkras.com/google-may-be-stealing-your-mobile-traffic/#comment-55336
======
cyrusshepard
This is a good response and I appreciate Malte's effort to engage publishers,
but it doesn't calm my nerves about the biggest publisher complaint about AMP:

 __Google owns the chrome (top navigation) on all AMP pages. This makes it
easy to navigate back to Google (why would you ever want to leave?) and other
publishers in the AMP ecosystem, but much harder to navigate to the publisher
that created the page in the first place __

In essence, this means that what was once a publisher-owned page is now shared
property: between the Google and the publisher. By controlling the top
navigation, Google more easily controls the content the visitor sees, keeps
visitors on Google longer, provides greater opportunity to track visitors, and
perhaps most importantly has the opportunity to earn more ad revenue.

Now imagine if this was a requirement for ALL pages served in Google search
results. You publish a page and it appears in Google, but when the user clicks
on it Google has pasted a new navigation on the top of your page. This is
exactly what is happening with AMP.

This is especially troubling in light of all the anti-trust controversies
Google is finding itself in, both in the US and abroad. A recent study showed
that 49% of all Google clicks go to Google properties of one kind or another
(Maps, YouTube, Ads, etc) [http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/intro-to-
mozcon-2016/24-L...](http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/intro-to-
mozcon-2016/24-Lots_of_NoClick_Searches_in)

Does AMP count as another Google property that will push more than 49% of
clicks their way? Hard to say, but it's a disturbing trend for a monopoly and
a hard pill for publishers to swallow.

~~~
inimino
If you aren't comfortable with it, just don't use it, right? I'm probably
missing something, but I don't understand how something can be such a hard
pill to swallow when it is opt-in.

~~~
ef4
AMP content shows up before other organic search results. So it's not really
optional unless you want to lose all your search-driven traffic.

~~~
rakoo
The guy said AMP doesn't influence ranking. Who do we have to believe ?

~~~
elsewhen
it may not be a direct ranking signal but i think this is a little
disingenuous. by putting this "lighting" icon next to some results, the CTR
(click through rate) on the SERPS (search engine results pages), will likely
be higher for AMP pages, and that higher CTR _is_ a direct ranking signal
which will eventually lead to better rankings.

------
gleb
As a user I've learned to avoid AMP pages because the UX is horrible:

* back button is broken 1/2 the time

* the bar wastes 1/3 of my screen

* I can no longer see what site I am on in the url

* it's hard to navigate to the / of the site

* I can't forward the link

* being on a good network in US it solves no problem that I have

What I'd really like to see is a way to opt-out of seeing AMP'ed pages in my
search results. Or at least a way to navigate from AMP page to its native
version.

Further, I noticed that AMP is a signal for low quality content. I am guessing
sophisticated publishers are conservative enough to wait and see. And
individuals haven't bothered dealing with it. So you get low-end publishers in
between.

~~~
awesomepantsm
Visiting non-AMP sites on mobile is masochistic (e.g. try searching news
results). You get basically all the same problems, but also pop-unders, late
loading ads, greedy javascript, autoplaying videos, and other bad behavior.

The AMP is really quite solid for the news use case, in my experience.

~~~
mixedCase
Using Firefox for Android with uBlock Origin pretty much solved that problem
completely for me.

~~~
Aissen
I use Firefox on Android + uBlock Origin as a default, but even _loading_ the
Firefox browser takes longer than loading, reading the first few lines of an
AMP article, then going back because it wasn't interesting. And I have a high-
end phone.

~~~
mixedCase
>And I have a high-end phone.

And bigger issues. My Galaxy S3 takes 4 secs to open Firefox without cache
compared to 3 secs to open Chrome.

------
matt4077
Yeah, I was quite surprised how positive a reaction the original complaint
got, considering it was long-winded, repetitive, and seemed to go out of its
way to misunderstand AMP.

The only valid criticism appears to be how google displays search results
using its own URL and this toolbar – it seems to break rather fundamental
assumption about http and has the potential to break all sorts of tools that
rely on the established structure of the web and open standards, as has
already happened with the refer(r)er as mentioned in this response.

I wonder if there's a way to get the same result without rehosting content on
their own URL. Couldn't they allow publishers to achieve the same result with
a CNAME, possibly for amp.<hostname>.<tld>? And do the google servers add
anything beyond being distributed caches? Because if not, it seems this level
of indirection is redundant for websites already hosted on CDNs.

Regarding the toolbar: yeah, that's a terrible idea. I have no sympathy for
publishers who object to it because if it reduces your retention rates there's
probably more wrong with the content than the presentation. But as a user,
it's the sort of "assisted browsing" that feels intrusive, like resizing the
window or a "you need flash" popup (I don't).

Considering their market share in browsers isn't far behind the in search, I
wonder why that function isn't just a chrome feature. Funny thing is: it's a
feature that exists in Safari ("Search results snapback").

~~~
peder541
If you look at the AMP docs
([https://www.ampproject.org/docs/guides/discovery](https://www.ampproject.org/docs/guides/discovery)),
publishers use <link> tags to point to the AMP page. For the original article,
the AMP version lives at [https://www.alexkras.com/google-may-be-stealing-
your-mobile-...](https://www.alexkras.com/google-may-be-stealing-your-mobile-
traffic/amp/) but the URL could follow whatever scheme the publisher wants.

Since Google search is most likely discovering the AMP page via the <link
rel="amphtml"> tag, they really should just use that URL. The Google servers
do add a couple minor things beyond being a distributed cache though. First,
there's swipe navigation to other articles if the link was located in the top
carousel in search results. Second, if you are on a laptop, the Google servers
will redirect you to the full version rather than use the AMP cache.

------
chiefalchemist
Google has their version of the internet. Facebook has their version of the
internet. As time slides forward just think of how many users won't know the
real internet from these rubber doll versions.

Congrats humanity. Your best invention ever and it only 20 years or so to
completely fuck it up. This is why we can't have nice things.

~~~
visarga
People need to own the means of production. In this case, it's the search
engine and social network. We can't rely on companies, because they are
greedy, nor on government, because it is corrupt. This is what happens when we
don't own the tools we use - we are subject to exploitation, others making
fortunes on our backs and abusing us by incessant tracking.

I'm amazed that there is no federated (not owned by a single entity),
anonymous search engine to this day and we're still pouring our brains into
Google. Google knows more about a person than his spouse, doctor and lawyer
put together!

~~~
majewsky
Correction: There is no federated, anonymous search engine that gives _good
results_.

~~~
antocv
There cant be.

People/powers-to-be would fuck it up, there would be "copyrighted material"
and eventually it would be declared an illegal activity.

Only companies such as Google and Facebook prevail not due to technical
reasons, but due to political power. They are selected by the likes of CIA,
invested in and nourished to their position, and do their bidding. And
alternatives are extinguished.

Google should not have existed had copyright laws been enforced as they are
towards another search engine, thepiratebay.org

------
rahrahrah
He avoids really hard addressing the only bit that matters

> Guess what happens when the "close" button is clicked inside the AMP view?

And the amount of disingenuous on this just rubs me the wrong way:

> If you are not comfortable with traffic on your AMP pages, please do not
> publish AMP pages.

~~~
cramforce
Happy to address the close button:

You are on a search page, you go on layer deep by clicking. The close button
goes back. I don't see what else it should do. Mind you that I do understand
that a link to the origin server would be a good improvement (and I've stated
that in the post).

I'm not sure what you find disingenuous. AMP are just web pages saying "HEY I
A AMP, please use treat me as AMP". You can publish the same bytes minus the
"HEY I A AMP" and get the old behavior.

~~~
mthoms
>The close button goes back.

No. Just no. The _back_ button goes back. Period.

The _close_ button closes modal windows overlaying the original page and
originating from the same site.

I can already hear you countering " _But.. since the content is served from
google.com due to caching, this pattern is technically correct_ ".

Which is tantamount to saying "We serve the content. So we can add whatever
the heck we want"

Very frigging clever Google. Well done. /s

~~~
cramforce
The UI logically and visually belongs to the opening app, indeed. If the page
itself opens a modal it opens on top of the bar and it's close button closes
that modal.

~~~
snappy173
but it's not an "opening app" ... it's a search engine. with links to other
sites.

... or is it?

~~~
shostack
Philosophical question...

If I hit the search bar on my Android device, and it opens Google Search in an
app interface, is it an app, is it a search engine, or is it both? What about
with their new strategy of integrating Google Search more closely into apps?
How about then?

The line is so blurry as to be irrelevant. The wording on the responses seem
to be on a different side of that philosophical argument, but I'm not sure it
is that black and white.

------
dingo_bat
So basically this guy says all of the issues are by design and you can choose
not to use amp if you don't like all of it. Google isn't going to penalize non
amp pages in search ranking. They are just going to not show your page in the
carousel.

I think it's a pretty fair position to take. If you don't like amp don't use
it. We'll see if amp catches on over a period of time.

~~~
criddell
Amp isn't ideal, but neither is Instant Articles on Facebook.

I'm hoping that Amp is really just Google training publishers how to make web
pages that aren't terrible for users.

~~~
dingo_bat
Instant articles is even worse, IMO. But Facebook is not pretending it's the
next version of the Web. Google is, so they set up an expectation of Web like
behaviors.

~~~
criddell
So what would you have done if you were in charge at Google?

At the time Amp was announced, Facebook's Instant Articles was really taking
off. It was by far the best place to read news online and arguably still is.

To get a similar experience outside of Facebook (before Amp) you had to use an
ad blocker. Right around that time, Apple added support for ad blocking in iOS
and suddenly ad supported content outside of Facebook was looking
unsustainable.

~~~
kuschku
> So what would you have done if you were in charge at Google?

File an antitrust complaint against Facebook, sue Facebook, and get a warrant
to get Instant Articles instantly shut down?

> suddenly ad supported content outside of Facebook was looking unsustainable

And just pivot regarding that?

------
xg15
I think one important point is hidden within this sentence:

"The original idea behind AMP was to allow content to be distributed to
_platforms (such as Google_ , Twitter and Pinterest) in a way that retains
[...] control for the publisher."

(emphasis mine)

So Google sees itself as a platform in the tradition of Twitter and Pinterest
- i.e. a controlled space on which content (with more or less control by the
authors) is published. That's a significant difference to the gateway to the
open web that they primarily still are at the moment.

~~~
bo1024
I agree, this is the key insight. Google sees itself as moving toward what I
see as a more reddit-like model. People might occasionally click away on links
to other sites, but the idea is to keep them on Google's "platform" by
default.

That's why clicking "X" means "go back to Google", because in this model, you
never left. You just temporarily viewed some content in a pane which you are
now closing.

------
Sephr
As positive as the response sounds, it is an empty promise.

> We’re looking at ways to make the source link more discoverable and will
> update once that is done.

If Google was _actually_ going to fix the issue, they would have said "we will
make the close button direct users to the original site and will update once
that is done" OR "we are changing the x (close) button to a ← (back) button".

"x" means "close" and "←" means "back". This is confusing UX at the least and
arguably a dark pattern.

~~~
andrewguenther
Am I in the minority in that I found the function of the "x" to be very clear?
I don't know if it is fair to call it "nothing less than a dark pattern"
without a bit more data.

~~~
cramforce
That is where we currently are. In our user testing it tests really well, but
there appears to be confusion in this community which would be good to
address.

My current feature request is to link the "publisher domain" to the origin
article, so that one can always click that to get there and use it to copy the
link.

------
codezero
Am I being uncharitable in saying the TLDR is:

This is working as expected and you need to do more work to make AMP work for
you?

Why can't it work with templates, why does content that was created need to be
created again for AMP? This doesn't seem very scalable.

Also, the attribution for ads and analytics basically means you need to
reimplement your entire tracking code within the schema and spec of AMP's
analytics attributes which only supports a subset of existing providers rather
than allowing an abstract interface.

Also to the point that AMP doesn't affect search position, is this true if
someone serves a shitty AMP page? Or is it only true that it won't boost
position?

~~~
cramforce
Well, it certainly works with templates (like the WordPress AMP plugin), but
that only gets you that far. It is definitely work to adopt AMP, but most
people who have done it are pretty happy with the workflow. We are always
listening for feedback, though, and are looking for ways to make it easier.

------
nv-vn
Am I the only one here who has never seen an AMP site in the wild? Seems
people in the comments are super familiar with the service.

~~~
probably_wrong
I have never seen one either, but I don't use Google search anymore.

Perhaps you don't use it either?

------
UweSchmidt
"The original idea behind AMP was to allow content to be distributed to
platforms (such as Google, Twitter and Pinterest) in a way that retains
branding and monetization control for the publisher. AMP traffic is the
publisher’s traffic. Period."

So far I haven't thought of Google as a platform like Twitter or Pinterest. I
thought there was a free web with Google and Bing and good old Altavista
searching and indexing it. Is making a website now similar to posting
something on Facebook? Or why would they have to assure you that your traffic
is your traffic, "period"?

If that's the case we need an urgent change in direction!

------
csmajorfive
It's nice to see Google investing in direct responses to the community. If you
build a developer product, monitoring HN for criticism and responding is very
high ROI. Few companies actually do this.

------
StephenConnell
If hacker news had a speed rating next to the links I would probably click on
them more instead of just reading the comments to decide if it's worth pulling
up an article.

Note, It has been suggested that a speed rating on Google would be equivalent
to the amp experience with less Google control.

~~~
50CNT
Speed also depends on where you are geographically. Amazon.com is probably
faster than Taobao.com in the States, but I'd have the opposite experience
over here in China. But then Google is the slowest this side of the GFW, so
that might be redundant.

~~~
StephenConnell
True, but Google knows where you are and could test the site from that general
region. It would cause additional overhead for Google but may be worth it.

Page render speed is just as important as server speed. A website bloated with
ads is what I object to the most, or any type of pop over that obstructs the
content.

~~~
50CNT
I wonder whether they incorporate these things into their ranking metrics
already, similar to how they do their Quality Scores for Adwords.

~~~
StephenConnell
Good question, in 2010 Google said that they "... today we're including a new
signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed. Site speed reflects how
quickly a website responds to web requests." [1]

I believe that page speed is also important, google provides PageSpeed
Insights to help you improve your site. [2]

[1] [https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-
speed-i...](https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-
search-ranking.html?m=1)

[2] PageSpeed Insights
[https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/](https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/)

------
EugeneOZ
Doesn't convince me. Top bar is the biggest problem and they are "working on
it"™ (we all know what does it mean) and "it will be landed in Chrome soon",
when Chrome is not only browser in the world of mobile devices. Also from this
response I see they want to make Chrome the new IE (if problem is solved in
Chrome - it's solved), and it's frustrating.

------
woliveirajr
End users, in generall, don't know and don't mind about these complaints
against AMP.

What matters is if one gets the results he was searching for. And somehow
those pages that have "amp" written nearby open faster, so let's click more on
those.

Market pressure will drive decisions on whether it's better have amped pages
(with those claimed drawbacks) or try to capture attention to the whole site
with navigation and lighter pages.

And as a prisoner's dilemma, if sites that don't have amp are as fast as the
amped, having "amp" near your link won't matter. If they are slower, the
distinction will matter, independently of your specific optimization.

------
jasonhansel
I don't see why Google needs to have its own cache for AMP pages. If a
publisher has its own fast CDN, why not just let it serve the AMP pages from
its own domain?

~~~
cramforce
The pre-rendering is one feature that requires a trust relationship between
the host (to only serve valid AMP) and the platform. Otherwise the page may
e.g. use a lot of CPU while in the background.

~~~
kuschku
So you’re saying AMP doesn’t actually speed up pages at all, and it’s only
sped up because you pre-render?

You just admitted the purpose of AMP being moot.

------
mthoms
There's also this little chestnut:

[http://searchengineland.com/google-amp-will-override-app-
dee...](http://searchengineland.com/google-amp-will-override-app-deep-links-
foreseeable-future-259905)

TL;DR Google AMP also hijacks app deep links

------
stygiansonic
Previous HN comments on the original story:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722590](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722590)

------
pmontra
> “If Google cares so much about the mobile experience, why cover 15% of the
> small mobile screen with a fat bar at the top?”

> The Android users might have already noticed that it is now scrolling out of
> the way

It doesn't scroll away. Just checked on Google news with both Chrome and
Opera. Android 6. Am I missing something?

------
aeharding
So if I built my own personal ad network, I could make a PR and have it be
accepted?

~~~
cramforce
Somebody is currently doing that:

An external contributor is currently building first class support for "My
simple ad network that just wants to put an image with a link on the page"
[https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5541](https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5541)

There are other ways to do it, though.

~~~
shostack
I've heard a lot of discussion in the ad community around how this limits
competition of ad networks. Yes, it is awesome you have many on board for
launch, but what of the ones who are not? Is there a publicly available
process for getting included along with guidelines to set reasonable
expectations for whether one will be included? If so, I'd love a link.

~~~
cramforce
See
[https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/ads/README...](https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/ads/README.md)

I think with the numbers of ad tech companies coming on board every week one
can safely say that the process is working for them.

------
TheAceOfHearts
Does Google have any plans to let users opt out? Maybe an icon that takes you
to the original? I tried opening the AMP link in a new tab and it took me to
the site, so at least there's a workaround.

Since I normally use Firefox Mobile (has to try it with Chrome), I don't get
the AMP icon and I'm taken to the requested site. I'm guessing this
functionality is limited to Chrome and (maybe?) Safari on mobile.

AMP is attempting to solving a challenging problem, and although I don't
personally agree with their solution, I've gotta recognize that opening the
embedded AMP version of the page from the result of "git tips" was faster on
Chrome than on Firefox. I'm hopeful that the lessons learned from this will be
pushed upstream and help improve the web.

~~~
cramforce
AMP works great in Firefox (modulo this bug right now
[https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5479](https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/5479)
:) and all other modernish browsers. Google Search currently chooses not to
display it for FX, but that is not due to a limitation in AMP.

~~~
kuschku
Instead, it’s because Google Search artificially penalizes Firefox users, and
even removes search options for them.

There’s been discussion about adding Google Search to the list of sites for
which Firefox Mobile always serves a faked User Agent because of this hostile
and anticompetitive behaviour before.

------
bhartzer
One of the problems here is that when users click on a search result (marked
AMP in Google's SERPs), they expect to visit a website. Instead, they visit a
cached version of the page, on Google's site.

This is deceiving.

If Google's going to cache the page, then there should be a "cache" link so
the user knows that they're clicking on a cached version of the page.
Otherwise, deliver the user to the site that they think they're clicking on.

------
forgotAgain
If it was Verizon or AT&T or some other ISP doing this there would be outrage.
But I guess it's cool if it's Google.

------
SakiWatanabe
so how do i view the original page...?

------
whiddershins
I'm interested in the intellectual property aspect of this.

Why exactly is it permissible for Google to "cache" my page and then serve it
up to users?

That's literally them copying my page to their own servers, which is my
content, my intellectual property, and then serving it up however they like.

I'm a little confused how that is legal.

------
ComodoHacker
>Hey, this is Malte and I am the tech lead of the AMP Project for Google.

Of all his 725-words response only 18 words directly address the problem:

>We’re looking at ways to make the source link more discoverable and will
update once that is done.

That's 2.5%. Is he really a _tech_ lead?

~~~
jrockway
This seems to compare favorably with the original article. How much
information density are you expecting?

Then you go on to imply that he's unqualified to be a TL because you don't
like his polite and conversational tone in an article that criticized his
project?

I just don't understand HN anymore.

~~~
ComodoHacker
>I didn't imply anything you've said. I just noticed that his response looks
like a product of PR or marketing department rather then tech lead.

A appreciate the fact of quick reply, even if half of the credit for it should
go to HN discussion.

~~~
jrockway
Everyone has to do PR to some extent. One misplaced word will create 100
comments on HN complaining about it ;)

