
Google AMP case study: leads dropped by 59% - krn
https://kinsta.com/blog/disable-google-amp/
======
privateSFacct
Here's the reality. The Taboola news carousals at the bottom of most slow
loading actual news sites are filled with total junk. One page per image
websites, super slow, adblock goes crazy. I've literally NEVER had a good
experience with these "Stories you may like"

Google does something with a news carousel that loads fast and the content
isn't crap. I get why publishers running things like taboola think it's
terrible, but as a user interested in reading some quick news without going
blind, I like it.

Hacker news is the exception in terms of a quick loading / clean website.

I was a google reader user heavily - so I like the more stripped down view of
things even if it's "terrible".

One other note about this study. This company's goal is not to educate but to
sign up users. At least for myself, Folks who want / like a stripped down
experience may just be less interested in being marketed to.

~~~
lol768
> The Taboola news carousals at the bottom of most slow loading actual news
> sites are filled with total junk.

This, a thousands times. For both Taboola and Outbrain it's clickbaity trash -
usually misleading and low quality content. They're designed to "disrupt" so
that people click on them and have in the past featured on blatantly false
news stories. I'd honestly be ashamed to work at one of these sort of
organisations and it further underlines how awful the web experience can be if
you're not using an ad blocker.

It's no surprise to me that AMP is popular among users if news sites are not
including such garbage in their AMP renditions.

~~~
freditup
It's interesting that so many people would enjoy AMP, because on my Android,
viewing AMP sites in Google's main app often feels much slower than regular
web browsing in Firefox for Android.

The difference? I have an ad-blocker in Firefox, but not in Google's app.

So Ad-blocking > AMP > Regular (as far as user-experience from a speed
perspective). Obviously Google has a lot of incentive to make sure people
don't go the ad-blocking route.

Though not sure what is keeping ad-blocking from growing given its superiority
- likely just a lack of awareness about the option. If ad-blocking ever did
grow massively though, the internet would change in ways we haven't yet seen.
Either ad-serving companies would win the arms battle and ad-blockers would
become ineffective, or, the web would have to move to a new payment model
(Brave-like perhaps).

I'm not entirely sure what the ideal is - likely a model where users can
choose between ads or micropayments is the most pragmatic world.

~~~
scarface74
Google AMP on iOS is also much worse than Safari + adBlocker. AMP also leaves
out relevant content.

~~~
ljm
A huge pet peeve of mine was that I'd google for something I once saw on
Reddit, or maybe I just wanted to see a certain discussion. Google would
identify the correct post, but then I'd either get it in AMP or new-redesign
format, both of which present a terrible loss in readability (for the most
part).

With AMP in particular, there was no obvious link back towards Reddit itself.
And with the redesign, the actual discussion was interrupted with sections
showing what other posts you could read on the subreddit. Similarly, both lost
the essential hierarchy and it was really hard to follow the threads of
discussion.

The whole thing was dreadful compared to using the decade old Reddit design.
The modern stuff is crap.

~~~
lugg
Heh I uninstalled reddit is fun a while ago to limit my procrastination.
Worked well. But I reinstalled after about a week because I search for things
on Reddit via Google regularly.

Reddit has some disturbing dark patterns going on.

You can't view a page on their site without being nudged to use their app. And
you're asked every single page view. Like take a damn hint please.

I'd be ok with the asking but they use different popups with the "no, go away"
answer in different places with different wording.

This is all exasperated by AMP, I have to click the amp banner twice to load
the real url, this then prompts to open in reddit is fun. Prompts because I
want this to happen only sometimes.

~~~
julianlam
It was these dark patterns that prompted me to really step back and re-
evaluate what I wanted to get out of Reddit.

I set a hard timer on the app and focused on surfing Hacker News instead
(since I wanted to keep abreast of tech news). I still browse /r/politics for
popcorn purposes, but otherwise no other subreddits. To my surprise today I
realised I hadn't opened Reddit and didn't even miss it at all.

~~~
airstrike
Thanks. You have just convinced me to never browse reddit again, and I've been
on it since 2007.

------
Rjevski
I don’t like AMP, but I am so happy to see when websites complain that “leads
dropped by 59%” because of it.

For “leads” to drop that much it must mean they weren’t legitimate, happy
leads in the first place. I bet those “leads” came from a shit letter popup or
other similar dark pattern, in which case AMP works as designed and benefits
the user by shielding them from such garbage.

AMP is bad for the web in the long term. But it is a decent stop-gap solution
given that nobody is willing to make their websites bearable without Google’s
pressure.

EDIT: I just tried their website again without an ad blocker and sure enough,
I was asked to subscribe to their shitletter.

~~~
kentt
Agreed. However, I'm more in favour of AMP because if the reasons you
mentioned. Essentially I think Google has tricked a lot of publishers into
using less dark patterns and avoiding shooting themselves in the foot with
heavy ads and tracking. It's not perfect but from an end user perspective I'm
grateful for it.

~~~
ehsankia
It's also important to note that AMP isn't meant to be used for every site out
there. It's only useful for specific sites that have a static landing pages. I
still don't understand why sites like reddit use it either.

~~~
ivanfon
The SEO incentives are likely enough to make any and all types of websites
interested in using it.

------
krn
I think that AMP made Google's search results feel like they were essentially
just Google's own pages. Because that's exactly what the user sees in his
address bar, when he visits an _accelerated mobile page_ :
google.com/amp/<...>. And that encourages him to hit "Back" as soon as he is
done with it, instead of checking out the newly discovered website. Because he
never felt like he had discovered anything. He never felt that he had left
Google.

The fact, that there are no AMP pages in Google's search results on Firefox
Mobile, was the final reason for me to make the switch. I feel like I am
browsing the _world wide web_ again, not just a Google's snapshot of it.

~~~
zavi
Users don't see google.com, they see shittypopups.com delivered by Google

------
emayljames
Hopefully this one-sided, web damaging framework will die a death like IE
finally did, with its awful standards.

~~~
setquk
Definitely.

I can’t understand why the hell anyone would want to use it anyway. The
experience is terrible.

~~~
Filligree
It's wonderful when browsing. Pages load in less than half a minute, unlike
nearly the entire rest of the internet.

Hacker News doesn't need it, but they're nearly unique in having written a
good website.

~~~
zzleeper
I abhor it on mobile. I can't navigate away from it easily, it's hard to copy
paste annurl to share with others, etc. I wish Chrome had the option to
disable it, but of course they don't.

~~~
madeofpalk
> I can't navigate away from it easily

eh? You can't hit 'back'?

~~~
AnssiH
They might also mean "go to the non-AMP version", which is my main issue with
AMP.

I'd like to get the non-AMP page to e.g. see user comments (if any) which are
often omitted from the AMP version, or for posting the non-AMP URL to friends
or social media.

Sometimes there is an easy way to go to non-AMP page, depending on how you got
there, but most of the time for me there is not. For example, this article
just appeared on my Google feed on my phone, with no way to open the non-AMP
version: [https://www.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/wda7jm/where-does-
he-...](https://www.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/wda7jm/where-does-he-get-those-
terrible-toys-an-interview-with-ashens-008)

My preferred option would be to have AMP permanently disabled on my phone.

~~~
yorwba
How to disable AMP permanently on your phone:

\- stop using Google feed. I can't recommend a one-stop replacement, since I
use RSS to follow sites I trust to produce high-quality content and HN to
discover new stuff.

\- stop using other Google products that link to AMP pages. DuckDuckGo is good
enough these days.

\- use Firefox. That in itself might prevent Google search from showing AMP
results, if you can't bear to use DDG. At least someone said so two years ago
in this thread on Google's product forums
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=t...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=topic/news/ixPneB4vpGk)

\- install [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/amp2html/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/amp2html/) in Firefox. It still needs to load the AMP page to
grab the canonical URL, but then it redirects to the non-AMP version. You can
also add an adblocker like uBlock Origin while you're at it. The ability to
install addons is what makes Firefox the best mobile browser in my opinion.

~~~
emayljames
I just thought of this great Ffox addon that I use too. AMP pages are not real
web pages. They are awful.

------
soared
> Could we have done more conversion rate optimization to our AMP install?
> Probably yes. There are ways to add CTAs, newsletter signups, etc

If I'm reading this correctly they switched from regular pages with CTAs to
AMP pages without CTAs. Seemingly this test was designed to fail.

------
lpasselin
The analysis on the google analytics data seems a bit biased against AMP.

\- decrease in average positions in SERPs on mobile \- decrease in CTR on
mobile \- higher number of impressions \- slight increase in total clicks

These measures are correlated. You can't just add them all together.

More impressions with the same amount of clicks means CTR (click through rate)
will drop. Average position should also drop.

In this case we see a slight increase in total clicks and almost double
impressions!

What if adding AMP makes Google show your site to a wider range of audience
(more variance on target audience), while assigning your pages a lower weight
(average position). You would get this behaviour. Lower average position but
more clicks. This could lower your account creation and similar metrics
because users are less interested.

What I mean is for some websites, getting more clicks would be great. If your
total clicks is the goal, you would like these results (ex: page with ads).
For search users, this is not good because we are shown pages that are less
relevant.

I would like more explanations on mobile leads, account creation, and
newsletter email sign-ups dropped. Why not show plots? Are these compared to
total from previous months or percentages? We should also need to be able to
compare both websites (mobile vs AMP) to see if there are any major
differences.

I am not an SEO expert or web designer but I personally use AMP on my modest
website. I don't even have a desktop version. Only AMP. It is simpler that way
and took only an afternoon (for a css noob) to switch. What made me switch was
their amp-img carousel lightbox. They are simple to use and just work. I tried
a plethora of css/js carousel or album viewers and chose AMP. Bonus page speed
and better mobile search cards.

~~~
le205
Very much agree with this comment. It’s quite likely that the AMP pages
received incremental impressions in lower positions, which reduced the overall
average position but increased clicks.

The screenshot of rankings from another tool (looks like Accuranker) with a
few +1 ranking improvements after disabling AMP also seems insignificant.
Often this kind of fluctuation is very normal. Without knowing the baseline
level of ranking fluctuation, it’s hard to read too much into this.

This is the danger of analysing ‘totals’ without segmentation to better track
incrementality.

Any test needs to be properly controlled to form clear conclusions and I don’t
see enough rigor here.

I would however commend the article on its advice to avoid simply ‘disabling’
AMP after using it for a period of time. There is cleanup to be done as the
article touches on, and I suspect many may not be aware.

------
jaredcwhite
Over and over again I'll click a link from Twitter or elsewhere, and in mere
moments I'm thinking to myself…waaait a sec, is this another crappy AMP page?

It never looks right. It's always "off" in some weird (and sometimes very
obvious) way. Nearly every time I go to the real page on the real website, it
looks better and functions better. Since I use an ad blocker, it's never a
problem for me that the real site might want to load heavier ads on mobile.

AMP is a plague on the open web. It's offensive, I never request it, and it
never solves any problem for me. I'm glad I use DuckDuckGo as my search engine
so I never get kicked to AMP pages from search. As a web developer, I've vowed
never to implement AMP on any of my client sites and will explain to my
clients why if asked (and so far I've never been asked).

Just say no to AMP.

~~~
emayljames
You have hit the nail on the head with this explanation. Just.Say.No!

------
sixtypoundhound
So another problem with AMP delivered via Google is it tends to utterly booger
your analytics... first pageview (via the Google cache) is viewed as a
different domain than your site. This can play havoc with optimization
efforts.

In terms of performance... this is a situation where the AVERAGE AMP site is
much faster than the AVERAGE site not using AMP... but that's a rigged game
given the volume of non-optimized WordPress junk and god-knows-what coming
from the typical advertising server (images, video, scripts).

A well-optimized site run by knowledgeable and balanced adults will see a
moderate improvement in speed; this is assuming you leaned out the pages
already and kept the advertising cruft on a short leash. You can generally
beat AMP's load times with some elbow grease.

~~~
ec109685
You can’t beat its load times. Google pre-renders the web page before the user
clicks, which isn’t safe to do with pages created by your own elbow grease.

~~~
drb91
Load times ain’t everything, and it’s a terrible pitch for something that
breaks basic rules of browsing.

~~~
ec109685
This post was specifically saying you could beat AMP’s load times. That isn’t
possible.

------
franze
the easiest way to get rid of AMP pages is rolling out an !important; in the
AMP CSS - so invalidating the AMP pages.

wait until they are kicked out from the google cache (see your trusted google
search console, best the useable old one).

then remove the references to the AMP page from the non-AMP pages. then delete
the AMPs.

usually takes 2 to 3 days for a few thousand pages.

------
abalone
They don’t actually say why they think leads declined.

They list a few reasons why they think it didn’t _increase_ , e.g. they’re
already fast on mobile. But they don’t explain a 59% drop in leads.

Crucially they note that impressions and clicks actually increased with AMP.
That points to an unflattering explanation: the AMP format is blocking
techniques they use to turn clicks into leads.

So why don’t they discuss the reasons for the drop? Perhaps because they know
those techniques are user hostile.

------
amelius
A company trying to hijack the web is not a good idea.

------
erikb
I have experienced AMP only from the user perspective and always hated it
since day one. Until now I don't really understand where it came from and why
people would willingly enable it on their site. The first thing I do when I
see it is consider whether to go somewhere else or open the actual underlying
link.

It already sounds toxic. Instead of loading your page suddenly I load a google
wrapper that includes some parts of your page. Doesn't that sound like a red
flags for anybody? Does it sound less toxic if I call it "free and open google
wrapper build on existing technologies"?

------
asdfologist
As a user I like AMP because it's guaranteed to be very fast. There, I said
it.

~~~
tyingq
Well sure, Google isn't dumb. Adding in enough benefits (speed, carousel
placement) to your Trojan horse ensures there are plausible reasons to bring
it into the fort.

Publishers certainly wouldn't give up the most important bits of their page
(the top), and cede left/right swipe hijacking (on carousel loaded pages) if
there weren't some perceived benefit.

~~~
PaulHoule
"Perceived" benefit is the key.

It used to be the "World Wide Web" but now it is the "Google Platform" and we
just live in it. After Google established that useful web search was possible
the realized that the #1 competitor for their ads was organic rankings, and if
you could really get a #1 ranking by investing in the best content then why
would you spend money on ads?

So since then it is has been about deliberately degrading the search results
so you learn to look at the ads instead, giving people bad S.E.O. advice, etc.

~~~
izacus
Your conspirancy theory completely ignores the whole shitshow of 15MB+ textual
websites we've had to endure in those last years.

~~~
tyingq
"Conspiracy theory" is an interesting take. Are you suggesting Google's
motives here are purely altruistic...solely to improve the web?

~~~
shaki-dora
The _conspiracy_ here seems to refer to the accusation that Google is trying
to actively make their search results worse, in order to force people to buy
ads.

That post does seem to be paying lip service to actual benefits for users
(such as speed), but then ... suddenly ignore them in favour of a Trojan horse
metaphor that doesn't make much sense to me.

~~~
tyingq
It would be hard to prove Google is purposefully making the organics lower
quality. On the other hand, it's obvious they are shifting them down the page
over time, which has a similar effect.

As for the Trojan horse metaphor, it is my opinion that's what AMP is. It's
tricking publishers into ceding control of their websites. I suspect Google
will, over time, leverage AMP to further march towards a walled garden. It is,
though, an opinion. Hard for me to "prove" something I'm not privy to.

------
izacus
What exactly are "leads" in this context?

~~~
tyingq
The article heavily implies sales leads...collected email addresses to try and
convert into sales.

They sell managed wordpress hosting.

However, their site doesn't appear to have much in terms of collecting leads.
No newsletters, no trial accounts, etc. They just have paid plans you can sign
up for. I guess the "contact us" page could be considered a lead generator.

So, I'm as confused as you are. Lead generation would be pretty bad if you
don't collect leads :)

------
drb91
It’s been about a decade since Google provided a decent user experience for
search. We really need an alternative.

~~~
Lizzo
[http://ddg.gg](http://ddg.gg)

~~~
drb91
That mostly offers the same functionality google does.

I’d love a search engine that gives users control over ranking, over whether
the site runs ads, whether they are a business, whether they’re SEOd out the
ass, by security, to blacklist results, to control how they’re displayed.

But of course none of these help display ads, so they have no value to
companies.

------
gwern
> Our mobile leads dropped by 59.09%. Our newsletter email sign-ups from
> mobile dropped by 16.67%. Our account creations from mobile devices dropped
> 10.53%.

What happened to _total_ leads/signups/creations?

------
freedryk
This is a totally uncontrolled test. How do they know leads wouldn't have
dropped anyways? Without an A/B test you can't draw any firm conclusions from
this.

------
jchw
Please don't turn off AMP actually. Do I really want to sign up for your dumb
site's newsletter, or get push notifications? Well, so far I've wanted to do
that Literally Zero times in the past, so I'm gonna bet on no.

------
Markoff
im surprised this is not banned in EU yet

------
xiphias2
Front end engineers are not selected for their skills in understanding
algorithms and data structures. It's quite easy to speed up a web site if you
understand how CPU works on a low level and how Javascript is compiled to
machine code, but it requires a lot of knowledge.

~~~
mercer
Very little knowledge is needed to know how to speed up a website (or keep it
from becoming slow). Almost every front-ender I've met, including those who
never got beyond inserting jQuery snippets, knows enough.

~~~
sureaboutthis
Speeding a site up is one thing. Speeding it up substantially is another and I
doubt your example of one who only knows how to insert jQuery snippets knows
enough to both understand and implement all the details from server to network
to browser.

~~~
mort96
You don't need to know enough to understand and implement all the details from
server to network to browser, you just need to know enough to remove the
<script> tags related to ad networks and tracking to see huge load time and ux
improvements.

It's not really the web developers who are the issue; they just implement what
the people above them in the org chart wants. You could argue that the web
developers should push back on it more than they do, but I don't buy that
they're not knowledgeable enough to fix it.

That's not to say that there aren't actual technical issues; the recent trend
of throwing front-end frameworks on content-heavy pages, making the users'
low-powered phones parse and run hundreds of megabytes of JS before the page
can be interacted with, is an example.

~~~
sureaboutthis
If one thinks all they need to do is remove javascript to speed things up
substantially, then they fit into my category of people who only know jQuery
snippets only think they know enough.

There are a multitude of issues that can be tweaked to speed things up more so
than javascript elimination. You can switch to HTTP/2, implement server push,
image compression, header compression, compressing HTML/CSS/Javascript
downloads, preloading, above-the-fold downloads, and much more. A jQuery
plugin user might not know half those things and I only mentioned maybe half
the things one should know.

~~~
TeMPOraL
And none of the things you mention will amount to anything if the site is
still pulling dozens of trackers and ad scripts.

The average JS dev (like average anything dev) may not write performant code,
but the functional parts of the website are not where the main problem lies.

~~~
sureaboutthis
That is a business and design problem not a programming problem. And if one
thinks the functional part of a web site cannot be tuned to substantially
increase the speed of a web site then one is part of that jQuery plugin crowd
who does not know or understand the pipeline from browser to network to server
and back.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Website performance will be limited by the parts you're not allowed to
improve, i.e. ad & tracking junk. It's basically Amdahl's law. I'd thought
understanding _that_ would be even more important.

