[superasn]

Instead of making us follow these Amp non-standards, Google should give an AMP logo in Google search results and preference (the same as an amp site) if the load time of the page is under 100ms. So now you have a choice, either DIY or use Google's tech to make your site fast.

This way it will create dozens of tech companies competing with AMP focused on making the web faster - the end result that Google supposedly wants and this way everyone wins!

[founderling]

Yes they should. But they will not. Because that is how small companies do it. Ride the wave of open standards and become big. Remember how Google embraced the web in the early days? Now it's time for them to lock users in and milk them.

I would love to see a startup tackling the issue. Creating a score that takes into account load time and other factors. If sites like HN and Reddit would use that score as a ranking factor, then this might get something rolling.

[bonesss]

> Now it's time for Google to lock users in and milk them.

I don't think Google is remotely at that point, and from their competitive perspective they're still winning by letting their open-standards-straw reach all the way across the room and drinking Microsofts/Oracles milkshake.

And for a tech behemoth with Billions of dollars flying around and fingers in all the pies I think Google has one of the, if not the, best track records in standardization. Concretely, when comparing their products at the personal and Enterprise with their competition they're consistently more open...

I think not having a massive clump of RDMB revenue helps them think freely about problems :)

[ucaetano]

And how would you do that? Would the browser load every single page on a Google search and then badge?

You can't test a page's load speed from Google's servers and then expect it to load for the user in the same way.

Especially because one of the key points behind AMP is the use of CDNs, especially global ones (like Google's, Microsoft's or Akamai), which greatly speed up load times while also reducing traffic for the ISPs.

[superasn]

Ok so it won't be perfect but it can be a very good approximate. They can benchmark the site from the user's city and use that value (hey if speedtest.net can have so many servers in every city I'm sure Google can arrange that too).

As far as CDN goes, nobody is stopping you from using it. If you want a site that rival's Google's AMP then you have to use a CDN. The only difference is now it's your choice what you use rather than being dictated to use their non standard tags and technology.

[mooman219]

This. The web host is likely going to try to spoof a low load time by sending a fake page to Google's web crawler. Then it'll be an endless cat and mouse. Also, there are more than a few websites on the internet. It sounds fairly unreasonable to keep fresh numbers on page load times.

[TurningCanadian]

They might be able to crossreference the result from their crawler with metrics from Chrome users that opt-in.

[rplnt]

In reality both approaches will result in webpages faking being fast.

[dx034]

Why faking? As a user, I prefer AMP pages because they load much faster. Often it's just because they don't have as many ads (and a non-amp page would be as fast then) but I can't see that from the search result.

[z3t4]

When there is a incentive, like more clicks, and it doesn't matter if you fake it, and it's easier to fake, then people will fake it.

[digitalengineer]

An extra logo (regular users won't understand) in all the search results? No thank you.

[traek]

AMP results already have a symbol marking them.

[digitalengineer]

Must be my script blockers then. Not seeing them.

[Artemis2]

It’s on mobile only AFAIK.