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by vorpalhex 3432 days ago
I mean, really, that's most of AMP: a restriction on a bunch of elements that may slow things down and a bit of special mark up so things can be further accelerated.

If most websites actually did load quickly, then I don't think AMP would have a reason to exist. But if most websites can't manage to slim down their bloat, then one potential answer may be to take away some of their toys (and I'm not saying it's the right answer, just a large part of AMP).

3 comments

Ok, so the solution is to create a standard subset of elements and create an open tool to test your site against the standard. If your page meets the requirements it gets the pagerank boost. If it doesn't meet the requirements somewhere then it points out what you need to change. No need for AMP.

Why wouldn't this work?

That would work (and personally I would prefer if AMP went in that direction) but it would be merely fast instead of crazy fast because apparently prerendering is only possible if you use the Google CDN.
Why? Chrome has been prerendering pages on search results for years. The only thing I could think of that would make it slower is that you may need to do a DNS request for a different domain, where google's domain is already resolved. (And google probably has a better CDN.)
google could have opted to create a standard that matches the amp standard, but not host the pages, and not put a "X" bar at the top, and not create new urls. they could have put the lightning icon on the serps next to all pages that are fully compliant with the standard.

the difference in speed between google-hosted amp and what i suggest above would be minimal.

the reason google didnt do it this way is because amp is not about speed. speed is just the thing they pitch to you to get you to look past all the negative aspects of the system.

Google could have, indeed. We were aiming at instant loading, though, and for instant loading we needed to do pre-rendering, and the only known way to do that does not allow for changing the origin (has to stay https://www.google.com).

We are working on a few ways how to both make access to the base URL easier and how to eventually even get the right URL in place.

plus the removal of another dns resolution.