
Google Creates 'Dedicated Placement' in Search Results for AMP Stories - anfilt
https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/09/google-creates-dedicated-placement-in-search-results-for-amp-stories-starting-with-travel-category/
======
superasn
Why doesn't Google treat all websites that load under 100ms at par with an AMP
site?

They keep using the ruse that AMP is important because it is all about fast
loading sites and less frustrating user experience but they have page speed
insights, and already rank sites based on load speed so why force this non
standard on everyone? If they just said we'll give you a bolt icon and the
perks for a site that loads under X ms no matter how you do it (AMP or
anything else) a lot of people will welcome it.

~~~
HALtheWise
Basically, because it isn't actually possible to make a website that loads in
under 100ms on poor connections any other way. For reference, on the fast
university wifi I am currently connected to, news.ycombinator.com loads in
499ms. When I switch to my phone's hotspot, that rises to 2.38 seconds, and on
a simulated slow 3G network, that rises to 6.51 seconds. I haven't tested a 2G
connection in India, but wouldn't be surprised if it exceeds 10 seconds.
Hacker News is not a heavy webpage, in fact, it is probably about as
lightweight a webpage as is reasonably possible to create.

The key technique that AMP promises will beat the limits of network latency is
precaching. Unfortunately, users have a strong privacy expectation that random
websites will not be notified that you are interested in them until you
actually click the link in search results (or news, or whatever). For
precaching to work without violating user privacy, the data needs to be loaded
from some server that already knows that the link was shown to you, so there
is no privacy violation from giving it that information. AMP's solution is for
the host company of the results page to fill that role.

The AMP lightning bolt is intended to mean "this page is already downloaded
offline on your device, and so will load instantly", not just "this page is
well-designed and fast". The difference is minor for blazing fast connections,
but that isn't true for developing world users with weak connections and
devices.

Google has said that when open web standards like Web Packaging finally show
up which enable the same safe preloading behavior, those sites will be
included in AMP carousels. We'll see whether they follow through with that.
[1] [2]

* All experiments conducted with cache disabled, times are until Load event fires.

[1] [https://blog.amp.dev/2018/03/08/standardizing-lessons-
learne...](https://blog.amp.dev/2018/03/08/standardizing-lessons-learned-from-
amp/)

[2]
[https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/contributi...](https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/contributing/web-
standards-related-to-amp.md)

~~~
jridgewell
This is the most well-informed comment about AMP I've ever read.

Disclosure: I work on AMP.

~~~
JoshMnem
> Disclosure: I work on AMP.

Do you all just not think about the long-term implications of what you're
building? It's going to destroy the open WWW.

Web publishers (and other people who are paying attention) don't want AMP or
Portals, but they are being strong-armed into it under threat of losing their
traffic.

~~~
dbbk
They do, they're just arrogant and believe they're right. And there's no one
to stop them.

------
mattkevan
After switching to DDG few years ago, I used google search again for the first
time in a while was surprised How bad their search has become. Not because
it’s not good, it’s still better than DDG at certain things, but because the
results have been crowded out by so much junk.

There were so many ads, snippets, did you also means, and AMP widgets that
there was only room for about eight actual search results.

How have they let their core product get so lost?

~~~
judge2020
Google realizes their biggest loss leader is directing customers off of their
website to other websites, so the best way to turn a profit is to either keep
users on the site (snippets, calculators[0], amp) or to send them to other
sites for a price via ads.

0:
[https://goo.gl/search/right+rectangular+pyramid+calc:+find+A](https://goo.gl/search/right+rectangular+pyramid+calc:+find+A)

~~~
jostmey
Except that people will stop using google if it can’t help them find useful
information. Google’s leadership seems to not understand or not care about how
the internet works

~~~
ivanbakel
I think it's highly naive to suggest that Google's leadership is operating in
complete ignorance of their own product. This is _the_ company of analytics -
whatever approach is being taken is probably backed by a gargantuan amount of
data.

That doesn't mean it's good for the web, but "what (the most) users want" is
Google's strong point. And this is par for the "the internet is now 4
websites" course, so I don't think it's possible to claim that this isn't "how
the internet works" anymore.

~~~
marcosdumay
If they are operating on top of a mountain of data, then they have a problem
(what honestly would be good, even too good to believe).

People are not the memoryless automata that statistics handles best. People
react positively to a bad change up to a point where they don't anymore, you
don't even need to keep changing to trigger this.

~~~
mercer
I really hope you're right, but who's to say Google might not be one of the
few that manages to correctly figure out how far they can go based on their
historically unprecedented amount of data? I wouldn't rely on it, either way.

------
hn_throwaway_99
I for the life of me don't understand how any Google AMP engineers can bother
defending this anymore. A couple weeks ago there was an AMP article related to
using real, source URLs, and a bunch of engineers from Google posted in
defense.

This is absolutely Google trying to dictate what the web should be. If the US
had functional antitrust authorities they would kill this.

~~~
pixxel
“I for the life of me don't understand how any Google AMP engineers can bother
defending this anymore”

Got to justify that google pay check. Mostly to themselves, helps to do it out
loud.

~~~
everybodyknows
Upton Sinclair, circa 1900:

>It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends
upon his not understanding it.

True 100 years ago, true today.

[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/)

------
lioeters
As much as I'm often dismayed by the negativity on HN (or, let's say, brutal
honesty: "this product is shit!") - harsh reactions are definitely warranted
for cases like this anti-competitive behavior. Let's keep raising the stink, I
hope the powers that be are paying attention.

(Long-time DDG and Firefox user, doing my best to de-Google myself and my
loved ones)

~~~
jimmaswell
Does Google make its own content which gets preferentially treated based on
AMP, or why is this anticompetitive?

~~~
bduerst
It's not anticompetitive. It's a web standard that anyone can roll on their
own domain (like amp.reddit.com), or host on a certified CDN (like Cloudflare)
to get the icon in search results. Bing, Yandex, etc. can add icons or
carousels in their results too if they wanted to.

~~~
vatueil
In fact, Bing does have a news carousel with AMP icons and their own AMP
cache. Microsoft has long used AMP and their support is increasing:

\- [https://blogs.bing.com/search/September-2016/bing-app-
joins-...](https://blogs.bing.com/search/September-2016/bing-app-joins-the-
amp-open-source-effort)

\- [https://blogs.bing.com/Webmaster-
Blog/September-2018/Introdu...](https://blogs.bing.com/Webmaster-
Blog/September-2018/Introducing-Bing-AMP-viewer-and-Bing-AMP-cache)

\-
[https://www.bing.com/amp/s/venturebeat.com/2019/05/09/google...](https://www.bing.com/amp/s/venturebeat.com/2019/05/09/google-
creates-dedicated-placement-in-search-results-for-amp-stories-starting-with-
travel-category/amp/)

Microsoft is part of the AMP Project's governance as well, along with
Cloudflare, Twitter, and other members: [https://blog.amp.dev/2018/11/30/amp-
projects-new-governance-...](https://blog.amp.dev/2018/11/30/amp-projects-new-
governance-model-now-in-effect/)

I wouldn't be surprised if AMP starts appearing in other Bing search results,
or if they start supporting links to AMP pages other than news articles in
their carousels (which when you get down to it is basically all this
announcement is about).

------
lwansbrough
I hold the people developing this personally accountable for its negative
impact on the web.

Each developer’s role is just small enough so they feel powerless or don’t
recognize the larger impact of their work.

If you were paid to work on this, you are either wilfully ignorant or morally
corrupt. Sure, this is only a small loss for the open web. But Google is a
factory for small losses for the open web. I hope the pay is worth it!

~~~
katzgrau
> If you were paid to work on this, you are either wilfully ignorant or
> morally corrupt.

I'm not a fan of AMP, but this is way over the top.

~~~
blub
No, why would it be? All those people working for Facebook, Google all the
other companies abusing our privacy are making a ton of money and we're all
paying the costs.

Why should we tolerate that? They are worthy of contempt.

~~~
izacus
There are people on this very website who have vehemently defended software
that decides whether some person needs to be killed with a missile from a
drone. That have defended and encouraged companies like Google to help
military kill foreigners, countrymen and countrywomen of many people visiting
this site.

And AMP, a restricted web standard, is that's "worth of contempt"? Please,
please, take a step back and think of it for a moment.

~~~
saagarjha
How much overlap do you think there is between the two groups you mentioned?

------
deogeo
I'm looking forward to antitrust action being taken against Google due to
trying to lock publishers into AMP.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
At this point, I suspect Google execs know it's inevitable, and figure the
more lock-in they can build with standards now, before it happens, the harder
it will be to meaningful strip Google's power.

~~~
est31
What do you mean? The government has managed to break up any monopoly since:
Think of Standard oil or Bell corp.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Computers are magic though.

~~~
h3ckr
The government cannot afford paying someone who actually understands
computers. That someone would already be in Silicon Valley, not wanting to
work for the government. Funny how things work

~~~
finnthehuman
You've spent too long in the bubble. People outside of norcal can understand
computers too. Many of them even work for the federal government outside of
policy roles.

Not everyone is looking to uproot their lives, move to a crowded, overpriced
city and sell their soul to adtech, all for a few more dollars, ya know?

~~~
dk-
I worked govt 10 years ago and this was 100% true then. Recently I made a
(foolish) attempt to return to govt contracting and was shocked, SHOCKED, when
they discussed Docker as a requirement and Kubernetes supported deployments as
a nice-to-have.

------
founderling
It seems like Google thinks of the web as "their thing". Just like Facebook
owns Facebook and Amazon owns Amazon, it seems Google wants to own the web and
turn it into Google.

Amp pages are similar to a Page on Facebook or an Article on Amazon. The
author is limited to what the platform allows. And the visitors stay on the
platform.

I wonder how that will turn out for Google.

I wonder how that will turn out for the web.

------
pxtail
I think that all of this: AMP, AMP Stories, mini apps[0] and recently
announced Portals is a road to create behavior and ecosystem similar to WeChat
where user can do as many things as possible without leaving the app. The
problem is that google doesn't have popular chat app, but hey... they have
incredibly popular search engine..

[0] [https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/08/googles-mini-apps-are-
app...](https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/08/googles-mini-apps-are-app-like-
experiences-for-search-and-google-assistant/)

~~~
v7p1Qbt1im
Partly yes. The end goal is most likely to merge everything. An assistant led
ambient web. Completely device- and platform-agnostic. Domains and source of
information will move to the background and fluid visual and voice information
will appear where and when it‘s requested or guessed.

Further away I can see devices completely disappearing. Surfaces of all kinds,
contact lenses serve as information overlays. Eventually the physical world
and that information layer might become indistinguishable and just sort of
combine to create the new reality.

/complete guesswork

------
mediocrejoker
It would be great to see a concise, relatively non-technical introduction to
what is AMP and why is it bad for the open web that I could send to friends
and family.

~~~
joegahona
[http://ampletter.org/](http://ampletter.org/)

------
karl_gluck
Well, here it is. This is the straw that broke the camel's back for me: I've
finally been motivated to switch my browser default to Duck Duck Go.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I made the same choice.

This is _exactly_ the type of behavior antitrust is supposed to prevent, and
it's the same reasoning behind the Microsoft antitrust action in the late 90s:
it's OK if you built up a monopoly because you had a superior product, but it
is NOT OK to leverage that monopoly to dictate other areas of the marketplace.

It would be OK if Google released AMP and everyone jumped on it because it was
a great product. The only reason anyone uses it is because Google gives it
prominent position in search results, and search position on Google is make or
break for anyone publishing content on the web.

------
mimixco
Glad to see that HN'ers are seeing this for what it is: another Google idea
that's sold as "benefitting users" when the only real beneficiary is Google's
ad revenue and control over eyeballs.

I'll echo the many here who report that, for everyday use, DDG is far
preferable. I've only needed Google for arcane programming links or occasional
news stories.

------
JoshMnem
The open WWW is one of the greatest things that humans have achieved, and
Google is in the process of destroying it. It looks like the goal is to
replace the Web with their own product where ads and tracking can't be
blocked, and fewer people leave Google's servers.

This new replacement for the Web will only fully work in Google Chrome,
because Google is abandoning true web standards with things like AMP and
Portals. (Being forced to include Google's JavaScript in your web pages under
threat of losing your traffic is not a real web standard.)

The bulk of what is published online will have Google's visual branding
(Material Design), and you might never leave Google's servers (as a user) or
be able to fully control your own tech stack (as a publisher).

AMP is a vicious attack on the open Web and a completely unethical power grab.
This is why one company shouldn't control the browser, the search engine, and
the operating system at the same time.

------
mises
You know what I hate about google search possibly most of all? It doesn't list
the actual URLs as hyperlinks. It lists part of them, and then has a google
tracking URL as an actual link. Some times, I want to copy a URL without
visiting it to use elsewhere. Sometimes, clicking it will cause the page to
redirect, meaning I have to copy really quickly. I wish they would stop doing
this.

For reference, you have to right-click and go to "copy link location"; then
paste, and you will see.

~~~
lozenge
That is how they know which results are good and which send people straight
back to the results page. And, it's going away thanks to the new "ping" HTML
attribute.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
"ping" died years ago, what are you talking about?
[https://stackoverflow.com/a/22434264/1075909](https://stackoverflow.com/a/22434264/1075909)

~~~
dbbk
It's very much still alive, it recently got added to Edge for example:
[https://caniuse.com/#feat=ping](https://caniuse.com/#feat=ping)

It got removed from the W3C spec, but it's still in WHATWG which is generally
considered the canonical spec anyway.

------
jacquesm
You can't really build anything just for the good of the world and _not_
expect that sooner or later the corporate vultures will swoop in to take over.
Google is rapidly becoming a cancer on the web, and I sincerely hope that
these monopolist tendencies will end up being smashed to bits by the
regulatory hammer.

------
pcmaffey
I’m considering adding a popup to ?amp=1 visitors that educates/warns them
that google is hijacking their browsing experience.

------
stephenr
More AMP bullshit.

But, as a pretty staunch anti-Google company, why does DDG send me to AMP
links? Give me the ducking (autocorrect pun!) canonical URL!

~~~
333c
> why does DDG send me to AMP links?

As a DDG user, I've never noticed this. Can you link an example?

~~~
stephenr
I couldn't find one last night when I saw your reply (of course) but I've been
sent to some sites that were AMP. It's instantly obvious because I have a
content blocker rule to block the AMP JS - so I get a blank white page for 8
seconds (because the AMP mandatory boilerplate specifies this, via CSS).

I'll try to find an example and note down the site that it happens on.

------
anfilt
This also makes it more obvious why google is trying to create this new portal
tag. They don't won't people leaving google at all.

Link to discussion on the proposed portal tag.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19866584](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19866584)

~~~
anfilt
Can't edit any more, but it's not even a guess any more.

[https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/contributi...](https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/contributing/web-
standards-related-to-amp.md)

------
codedokode
Slightly off-topic, but without "reading mode" that site is unreadable.

------
thinkingemote
I'm happily contrarian. can anyone state a positive spin on this story?

------
sergiotapia
Damn Google you are nasty and getting nastier every day. Flutter is yet
another wedge you are trying to sneak into developers toolkits, although I
don't think it's going to catch on. Developers are becoming wise to what's at
stake.

------
tobr
Shame on Venturebeat for reporting Googles’s messaging on this without as much
as mentioning the criticism AMP has been met with, or how this makes it even
more problematic.

------
CoolGuySteve
Embrace, extend, extinguish.

~~~
yborg
Get monopoly power, do monopoly things.

------
memo_ree
Seriously, I just don't get these hateful comments on Hacker News regarding
AMP. It helps websites load fast on mobile, and users really appreciate when
websites load fast.

~~~
MrStonedOne
As a mobile user, I fucking hate it.

I hate that every fucking google search result on mobile web has its stupid
little icon

I hate that there is no way for me to disable it as a user

I hate that it has muddied the waters in what the url bar means

I hate that it has trained users to not question fake url bars.

I hate that cloudflare so thoroughly jumped on its dick

I hate that we invented a way to fake the address in the url bar just for this
stupid fucking feature.

I hate that we now have a system where somebody can share a page url with a
friend, and that friend can view it on t he same device model using the same
browser with the same settings, and will get a different page because one was
viewing an amp page but shared it's real url.

I hate that every fucking amp page is lower featured in some way, and almost
never works in desktop mode.

And most of all, I hate that it leads to everybody offloading shit onto
google's servers.

AMP is not fast because it's served from google's CDN. That's a lie, It has
always been a lie, and it will always be a lie. AMP is fast because it's
incompatible with 99% of the bullshit client cpu heavy tracking and ad
libraries, so they don't get included inside AMP pages.

We could have just had that, without all this stupid bullshit CDN
redirection/misdirection bullshit.

And you know what, You want me to get off my hate train? Get google and all of
the other search providers using it to solve complaint #2. That's really all
it would take to get most of the hate to go away.

~~~
memo_ree
> AMP is fast because it's incompatible with 99% of the bullshit client cpu
> heavy tracking and ad libraries, so they don't get included inside AMP
> pages. > We could have just had that, without all this stupid bullshit CDN
> redirection/misdirection bullshit.

I agree the world could have faster pages _without_ AMP. What would that take
though? Would it take web developers across the world pushing back against
including megabytes of extra JavaScript for ads/tracking, at all the companies
who are currently using AMP?

~~~
hw
Isn't that up to the developers themselves - whether they want to shoot
themselves in the foot by slowing down their site by including lots of JS? Who
is Google to determine how the Internet should be run? Shoving AMP down
people's throat - because Google can as it owns majority browser and search
market share - is akin to large governments in the world pushing their weight
around and sticking their noses in other countries' issues.

I cringe everytime I visit a page that's AMP enabled, and usually bounce or
just get on a desktop. Sure, promote a 'faster' web, but if it's at the
expense of a horrible experience, why?

~~~
izacus
No, it's akin to large governments swooping in and regulating industries when
they start hurting people en masse. Web developers weren't professional enough
to make the web fast. AMP isn't the right solution, but the community itself
was incapable of policing itself so it was just a question of time before it
happened.

Before that, people were massively moving to the apps because the web got too
slow and unusable on mobile.

~~~
lwansbrough
Who elected Google to act on our behalf? Free market takes care of slow sites.
Either they’re too slow to use or they’re not.

~~~
joshuamorton
And they did. Google, a member of the free market, found that slow sites were
negatively impacting them. So it took action.

------
ben_jones
I just want Google to acknowledge WHY they do stuff like this instead of an
incompetent attempt to distract users with WHAT or HOW. AMP is clearly
designed to keep internet users within Google's membrane because the default
AMP cache most people are hitting is Google's. Sure, its faster then many
types of websites but that is only a side affect of the system not its primary
purpose or feature. Google execs are not excited or bullish about AMP because
of performance gains. Talk about the real reasons if you want to have
integrity.

~~~
calibas
They do it to make money, but being that honest makes them sound like an
amoral entity motivated almost solely by greed (which they are).

