AMP SEO

TL;DR — AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is a Google framework from 2015 for building super-fast mobile pages. It was never a ranking factor, and since June 2021 you no longer need it to show up in Google’s Top Stories carousel — Core Web Vitals took over that job. For a new site, don’t bother with AMP. If you already have it, decide whether it’s still worth the hassle.

What AMP is

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. Google launched it in 2015 (it showed up in Google Search that October) as an open-source way to make mobile pages load almost instantly.

It works by putting your page on a strict diet. AMP only allows a limited set of HTML, your own JavaScript is mostly banned, CSS has to be inline and small, and you have to load a special AMP library. In exchange, Google can store a copy of your page on its own super-fast network (the Google AMP Cache) and load it in the background before someone even taps your result — so it feels instant.

Why people used it

For years, AMP was basically the price of admission to the Top Stories carousel — the news box at the top of mobile search results. If you ran a news site and wanted to be in Top Stories, you needed AMP. Google also showed a little lightning- bolt icon (⚡) next to AMP results so people knew the page would load fast.

What changed

In June 2021, Google stopped requiring AMP for Top Stories. Now any page can appear there, as long as it meets Google’s news criteria — what matters for the performance side is Core Web VitalsGoogle's three real-user UX metrics — LCP (loading), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability) — used by Google's ranking systems, with no official weight attached, measured on field data., Google’s speed-and-stability metrics, not AMP. Google also removed the lightning-bolt badge from results around the same time.

The thing most people get wrong

AMP is not a ranking boost. Google has always said AMP itself is not a ranking factor. Fast pages can rank better, sure — but AMP is just one way to get fast, and not the only one. A well-built regular page can be just as fast (or faster) without any of AMP’s restrictions.

Should you use it today?

• New site? Don’t build on AMP. Spend that effort on Core Web VitalsGoogle's three real-user UX metrics — LCP (loading), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability) — used by Google's ranking systems, with no official weight attached, measured on field data. instead.
• Already have AMP? It still works and still gets indexedStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed.. But many publishers have turned it off without losing much traffic, partly because AMP makes analytics messier. It’s worth asking whether it’s still earning its keep.

Want the full version — the canonical tagging, the URL rewriting problem, Signed Exchange, analytics gotchas, and a real remove-it checklist? Switch to the Advanced tab.

TL;DR — AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. is Google’s 2015 open-source framework for near-instant mobile pages — restricted HTML/CSS/JS plus prerenderingTurning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into the final visual page and DOM. from the Google AMP Cache. It was never a ranking factor (Google says so explicitly), and since the June 2021 Page ExperienceGoogle's three real-user UX metrics — LCP (loading), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability) — used by Google's ranking systems, with no official weight attached, measured on field data. update it’s no longer required for Top Stories — Core Web VitalsGoogle's three real-user UX metrics — LCP (loading), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability) — used by Google's ranking systems, with no official weight attached, measured on field data. replaced it and the AMP badge was removed. Cached AMP still serves under google.com/amp/s/…; Signed Exchange (SXG) can serve it under your own URL but only in Chrome. The canonical relationship pairs a self-canonical non-AMP page (carrying rel="amphtml") with an AMP page that rel="canonical"s back. Today AMP is optional and declining: don’t build new AMP, and weigh the operational cost (especially analytics) before keeping it.

A bit of history

Google launched AMP in 2015 and made it available in Google Search in October 2015, positioning it as the open web’s answer to Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News — a way to keep publisher pages competitive on mobile speed. It was backed at launch by partners like Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress, and Pinterest, and the project later moved to OpenJS Foundation governance, though Google has remained the dominant contributor.

The reason most publishers actually adopted it wasn’t ideology — it was the Top Stories carousel. From roughly 2016 to 2021, AMP was effectively required to appear there, and Google flagged AMP results with a lightning-bolt (⚡) badge.

How AMP works technically

AMP buys speed through constraints:

• Restricted markup. An AMP page declares <html ⚡> (or <html amp>), loads the AMP JS runtime (<script async src="https://cdn.ampproject.org/v0.js">), and includes the AMP boilerplate plus required charset and viewport meta tagsAn HTML head element — <meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width, initial-scale=1\"> — that hints mobile browsers to size the layout viewport to the device's width in CSS pixels instead of a legacy ~980px fallback, so responsive design works..
• No author JavaScript. Your own JS is disallowed except via the sandboxed amp-script component; third-party JS only runs inside iframesHTML element that displays one webpage inside another — how embeds work.. Everything that does run is asynchronous, so nothing blocks renderingTurning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into the final visual page and DOM..
• CSS is inline and capped at 75KB. No external stylesheets.
• Resource dimensions are declared statically. Images and embeds reserve their space up front, which prevents layout shiftCumulative Layout Shift — a unitless score for unexpected visual movement, taken from the largest burst (session window) of layout shifts, not the lifetime sum. ≤0.1 is good..

Those rules are what let Google safely prerenderThe Speculation Rules API is a Chromium browser API (Chrome/Edge 109+) that lets a site tell the browser which same-site pages to prefetch (download the HTML document) or prerender (fully load and render in an invisible tab) before a visitor clicks — so the next navigation can be near-instant. It's a browser-side performance feature for real users, not a crawling, indexing, or ranking signal. an AMP page in a hidden iframe before the user taps — which is where the “instant” feeling comes from.

The Google AMP Cache

AMP’s speed isn’t just the framework — it’s the delivery. Google stores a validated, optimized copy of your AMP page on cdn.ampproject.org, serves it over HTTPSHTTPS is the encrypted version of HTTP — it uses TLS to authenticate the server and protect data in transit between a browser and a website. Google announced it as a lightweight ranking signal in 2014 and today conditionally prefers HTTPS pages as canonical; Chrome marks plain HTTP pages 'Not Secure.' and modern protocols, and optimizes images. One consequence worth internalizing: with cached AMP, Google’s infrastructure becomes the host of your content, not your servers. Note also that desktop AMP pages aren’t served from the AMP Cache — canonical AMP behaves as a standard result there — so the CDN-acceleration benefit is effectively a mobile thing.

What actually happened in Google Search

The timeline that matters:

• 2016–2021: AMP badge (⚡) shown in results; AMP required for Top Stories.
• April 2021: Google announced that, with the Page Experience update, “using the AMP format is no longer required” for Top Stories.
• June 2021: The Page Experience update rolled out. Core Web VitalsWeb Vitals is Google's initiative (launched May 2020) for unified page-experience quality signals. Core Web Vitals — LCP, INP, and CLS — are the subset used in ranking; the rest (TTFB, FCP, TBT, Speed Index) are diagnostic, not ranking factors. became the performance signal for Top Stories eligibility, and Google removed the AMP badge from results.
• 2021–present: AMP is optional, carries no ranking boost, and CWV is what actually drives performance-related signals.

The headline you need: AMP itself isn’t a ranking factor, and it isn’t your ticket to Top Stories anymore.

The URL rewriting problem (and Signed Exchange)

There are three URLs in play for a single AMP article: your original publisher URL, the AMP Cache URL on cdn.ampproject.org, and the Google AMP Viewer URL, which looks like https://www.google.com/amp/s/[your-domain]/[path]. Because prerendering requires a same-origin iframe, the Viewer serves your content under a google.com URL — so users see Google’s domain, not yours. That has been a real source of brand confusion and attribution headaches.

Signed Exchange (SXG) is the fix. It wraps the AMP document in a cryptographic signature tied to your URL, so when Chrome validates it, the browser shows your domain in the address bar. Google prioritizes signed exchange over AMP Viewer when supported. The catches: SXG is Chrome-only, signatures have a maximum lifetime of 7 days (so the packager must re-sign), it’s limited to rich and basic results (not carousels), and it requires running an amppackager server or a third-party SXG provider. It’s the “right” serving method but a meaningful operational lift.

AMP canonical tagging

This is where AMP implementations break most often. Two setups:

• Paired (most common): a non-AMP page and a separate AMP page.
  • The non-AMP page is its own canonical and adds <link rel="amphtml" href="https://example.com/article/amp/">.
  • The AMP page adds <link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/article/"> pointing back to the non-AMP version.
• AMP-only: a single URL is both canonical and AMP, so it self-references.

Practical rules: Google indexes the canonical URL (AMP is treated as a duplicate), so put your structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. on both versions, include only canonical URLsHow search engines pick one canonical URL among duplicates and consolidate signals onto it. in your sitemapA sitemap is a file that lists the pages, images, videos, and other files on your site so search engines can discover them. It helps discovery, but submitting a sitemap doesn't guarantee crawling or indexing., and let rel="amphtml" handle AMP discovery. Google documents this exact rel="amphtml" / rel="canonical" pairing — see About AMP: make your content discoverable for the reference relationship if your setup doesn’t match either case above.

AMP analytics challenges

AMP’s tracking complexity is a genuine operational cost, not a theoretical one:

• The referral problem. Traffic from cached AMP pages historically showed up as referrals from cdn.ampproject.org rather than organic search — the fix is a referral exclusion for that domain.
• Session fragmentation. Moving from a cached AMP page to your non-AMP page started a new session by default. The AMP Linker (passing the Client ID via an amp_id= URL parameter across the cache-to-site boundary) is what stitches them together.
• GTM for AMP uses the amp-analytics component — a more complex setup than standard GTM, with fewer features.
• GA4 gained native AMP support in June 2024; before that, AMP measurement leaned on community implementations.

When Search Engine Land turned off AMP, “a clearer picture of their audience analytics” was one of the wins they reported — so this is a known pain point.

Other AMP surfaces (so you don’t conflate them)

• Web Stories (launched as AMP Stories in 2018, rebranded Google Web Stories in 2020) are a visual, tappable stories format built on AMP. They appear in Search, Discover, and Images. Distinct from standard AMP articles.
• AMP for Email brings interactive content (forms, carousels, real-time data) into Gmail and a few other clients. It’s an email feature, not a search-SEO one — worth knowing it exists, not relevant to ranking.

Bing and AMP

Bing joined the AMP open-source effort in September 2016 and ran its own AMP viewer and cache for a time, with its own lightning-bolt treatment. But per Bing, AMP did not impact their ranking algorithms in any way, and Bing’s AMP support is now largely historic — there’s no current news carousel that requires AMP and no prominent AMP reporting in Bing Webmaster ToolsMicrosoft's free portal for monitoring and improving how a site appears in Bing search — the peer to Google Search Console, plus IndexNow instant indexing, richer backlink data, and keyword volumes. Because Bing's index also feeds Microsoft Copilot, it doubles as a window into AI-search visibility.. In practice Bing’s posture mirrors Google’s: optional, no ranking boost.

Should you still use AMP?

Cases where keeping AMP can make sense:

• A news/media publisher already on AMP with low Search ConsoleGoogle's free tool for monitoring crawling, indexing, and search performance. error rates and high switching costs.
• A simple-content site where AMP happens to be the path of least resistance to good Core Web Vitals.

Cases to remove it:

• Enterprise sites with functionality AMP can’t support — this is exactly the case I argued at SMX West: for a large company with a complex structure, AMP can be too difficult to implement and carry excessive risk, and there are real business reasons to keep site elements AMP doesn’t allow.
• Sites running AMP only for a Top Stories badge that no longer exists.
• Sites where analytics clarity matters — AMP’s tracking complexity is a real cost.
• Sites already passing Core Web Vitals — no additional benefit from AMP.
• Any site where AMP’s URL rewriting is causing brand or attribution problems.

The honest 2026 answer: AMP is optional and declining. For new projects, don’t implement it. For existing ones, evaluate operational cost vs. remaining benefit.

How to remove AMP (if you decide to)

1. Remove the rel="amphtml" tag from your canonical (non-AMP) pages.
2. 301-redirectA redirect sends browsers and crawlers from a requested URL to a different one. An HTTP redirect specifically is a 3xx status code paired with a Location header; meta refresh and JavaScript redirects achieve a similar navigation without being a 3xx response themselves. Permanent redirects (301/308) are Google's signal the target should be canonical; temporary ones (302/303/307) aren't. the AMP URLs to their canonical non-AMP equivalents.
3. Stop monitoring the AMP status report in Search Console.
4. Verify AMP errors clear out of Search Console over the following weeks.

Done properly, the canonical pages keep being indexed and ranked. Major publishers, Search Engine Land among them, have removed AMP with minimal traffic disruption.

Myths worth killing

• “AMP gives a ranking boost.” It doesn’t. AMP is not a ranking factor; speed is, and AMP is just one way to get speed.
• “You need AMP for Top Stories.” False since June 2021.
• “AMP is always faster than a regular page.” No — the edge comes from Google prerendering the cache copy. A fast non-AMP page can beat a slow AMP page.
• “AMP URLs are your URLs.” Only with Signed Exchange (Chrome-only). The default Viewer shows google.com/amp/s/….
• “Removing AMP will tank traffic.” Handle the canonical/redirects correctly and the impact is typically minimal.

For the performance signals that do matter now, see Core Web VitalsGoogle's three real-user UX metrics — LCP (loading), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability) — used by Google's ranking systems, with no official weight attached, measured on field data. and the broader Web Performance cluster.

AI summary

A condensed take on the Advanced version:

• AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. = Accelerated Mobile Pages, Google’s open-source framework launched in 2015 (available in Google Search October 2015) for near-instant mobile pages via restricted HTML/CSS/JS + prerenderingTurning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into the final visual page and DOM. from the Google AMP Cache.
• Never a ranking factor — Google says so explicitly. Speed matters; AMP is one way to get it, not the only one.
• No longer required for Top Stories since the June 2021 Page ExperienceGoogle's three real-user UX metrics — LCP (loading), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability) — used by Google's ranking systems, with no official weight attached, measured on field data. update — Core Web VitalsGoogle's three real-user UX metrics — LCP (loading), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability) — used by Google's ranking systems, with no official weight attached, measured on field data. replaced it, and the AMP badge was removed from results.
• Serving: cached AMP usually shows under google.com/amp/s/…; Signed Exchange (SXG) can serve under your own URL but is Chrome-only (7-day max signature, no carousels, needs a packager).
• Canonical pairing: non-AMP page is self-canonical and carries rel="amphtml"; AMP page rel="canonical"s back. Google indexes the canonical; put structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. on both; sitemapA sitemap is a file that lists the pages, images, videos, and other files on your site so search engines can discover them. It helps discovery, but submitting a sitemap doesn't guarantee crawling or indexing. lists canonical URLsHow search engines pick one canonical URL among duplicates and consolidate signals onto it. only.
• Analytics is the real cost: cdn.ampproject.org referral problem, session fragmentation (fixed via the AMP Linker / amp_id=), complex GTM-for-AMP. GA4 added native AMP support in June 2024.
• Distinct surfaces: Web Stories (AMP Stories, rebranded 2020) and AMP for Email — neither is article-AMP-for-search.
• Bing: joined AMP in 2016, but AMP never affected Bing ranking; support is now largely historic.
• Decision: optional and declining. Don’t build new AMP; remove it (remove rel="amphtml", 301 the AMP URLs) when operational cost outweighs the shrinking benefit.

Official documentation

Primary-source documentation from the search engines and the AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. project.

Google

• About AMP — how Google serves AMP (Viewer vs. Signed Exchange), the “not a ranking factor” line, and the desktop-cache caveat.
• Validate AMP pages — the AMP Test, Rich ResultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. Test, and the Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results. AMP status report.
• More details on the page experience update (April 2021) — the announcement that AMP is no longer required for Top Stories.
• Google AMP Cache overview and AMP Cache URL format — how the cache stores and addresses AMP pages.
• What’s in an AMP URL? — why the Viewer URL is required for prerenderingTurning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into the final visual page and DOM..
• Signed Exchanges (SXG) — serving AMP under your own URL.
• AMP for Email — the separate email use case.
• GA4 measurement of AMP and AMP session unification — the analytics specifics.

AMP project

• How AMP works — the framework’s own explanation of restrictions and prerendering.
• Serve AMP using Signed Exchanges — the implementation guide.

Bing / Microsoft

• Bing App joins the AMP open-source effort (Sept 2016) — Bing’s entry into AMP.

Quotes from the source

On-the-record statements from Google and Bing. Each link is a deep link that jumps to the quoted passage on the source page where supported.

Google — AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. is not a ranking factor

• “AMP itself isn’t a ranking factor.” — Google Search Central docs. Jump to quote

Google — AMP no longer required for Top Stories

• “using the AMP format is no longer required” for the Top Stories carousel. Jump to quote

Google — Signed Exchange is preferred over the Viewer

• Google “prioritizes signed exchange over AMP Viewer when supported.” Jump to quote

Google — desktop AMP isn’t cache-served

• “Desktop AMP pages are not currently served from Google AMP Cache; canonical AMP pages behave as standard results.” Jump to quote

Bing — AMP is not a Bing ranking factor

• “AMP does not impact our ranking algorithms in any way.” — Bing’s group engineering manager at the time of AMP launch. Read the coverage

Keep AMP, remove it, or avoid it?

Are you considering AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. for a new project? Do not add it for SEO. AMP is not a ranking factor and is no longer required for Top Stories. Build the canonical site to meet its performance and publishing requirements directly.

Do you already operate AMP pages? Continue only if the AMP version still provides a measured business or delivery benefit that exceeds the cost of maintaining a second implementation.

• AMP is stable, inexpensive, and materially useful: Keep it, but audit canonical pairing, validation, analytics, and content parity.
• AMP exists only for an old Top Stories requirement: Plan removal.
• AMP causes analytics, feature, branding, or maintenance problems: Remove it with URL-by-URL redirectsA redirect sends browsers and crawlers from a requested URL to a different one. An HTTP redirect specifically is a 3xx status code paired with a Location header; meta refresh and JavaScript redirects achieve a similar navigation without being a 3xx response themselves. Permanent redirects (301/308) are Google's signal the target should be canonical; temporary ones (302/303/307) aren't. to the canonical equivalents.
• The canonical pages do not yet meet your performance needs: Fix that first, then migrate; do not remove the working version without a replacement.

AMP maintenance and removal checklist

If AMP stays

• Each canonical page points to its AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. counterpart with rel="amphtml".
• Each AMP page canonicals back to the corresponding non-AMP URL.
• Content and structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding. remain equivalent across both versions.
• AMP documents validate after template, component, and advertising changes.
• Analytics preserve attribution and sessions across cache-to-site navigation.
• Only canonical URLsHow search engines pick one canonical URL among duplicates and consolidate signals onto it. appear in the XML sitemapAn XML sitemap is a UTF-8 file listing the canonical URLs on your site (with optional lastmod) so search engines can discover and prioritize them. It's a discovery and diagnostic aid, not a guarantee of indexing — and Google ignores its priority and changefreq tags..

If AMP goes

• Confirm canonical pages contain the full content and pass the team’s performance acceptance checks.
• Remove rel="amphtml" from canonical pages.
• Map every AMP URL to its exact canonical equivalent with a permanent redirectA 301 redirect is the HTTP status code for a permanent move: it tells browsers and search engines a URL has moved for good, and it's the strongest signal for consolidating a page's ranking signals onto the new URL. Google says permanent redirects don't cause a loss in PageRank..
• Retest canonicals, structured data, internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them., and analytics on the target.
• Monitor Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results. while AMP reports clear and canonical URLs are recrawled.

AMP mistakes to avoid

Keeping AMP for a ranking boost that does not exist

AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. was never a ranking factor and has not been required for Top Stories since 2021. Keep it only for a current, measured operational benefit.

Publishing two drifting versions

An AMP page with thinner copy, missing structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding., or different calls to action creates parity and maintenance problems. Use one content source and validate both outputs.

Removing AMP without URL-level redirects

Deleting AMP endpoints or sending all of them to a homepage breaks the established URL relationship. RedirectA redirect sends browsers and crawlers from a requested URL to a different one. An HTTP redirect specifically is a 3xx status code paired with a Location header; meta refresh and JavaScript redirects achieve a similar navigation without being a 3xx response themselves. Permanent redirects (301/308) are Google's signal the target should be canonical; temporary ones (302/303/307) aren't. each AMP URL to its matching canonical page.

Declaring victory because the document validates

Validation proves AMP conformance, not analytics continuity, canonical correctness, content parity, or good user outcomes. Test the whole delivery path.

AMP cheat sheet

The facts that settle most arguments

The canonical pairing

SitemapsA sitemap is a file that lists the pages, images, videos, and other files on your site so search engines can discover them. It helps discovery, but submitting a sitemap doesn't guarantee crawling or indexing. / structured dataStructured data is a standardized way of labeling page content (using the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) so search engines can understand its meaning. It's not a direct ranking factor — its value is rich results and entity understanding.: sitemapA sitemap is a file that lists the pages, images, videos, and other files on your site so search engines can discover them. It helps discovery, but submitting a sitemap doesn't guarantee crawling or indexing. lists canonical URLsHow search engines pick one canonical URL among duplicates and consolidate signals onto it. only; put structured data on both versions.

Serving & analytics fast facts

• Cached AMP usually serves under cdn.ampproject.org / google.com/amp/s/….
• SXG = your URL in the bar, Chrome-only, 7-day max signature, no carousels.
• Exclude cdn.ampproject.org as a referral; use the AMP Linker (amp_id=) to unify sessions.
• GA4 native AMP support: June 2024.

Removing AMP

1. Drop rel="amphtml" from canonical pages → 2. 301 AMP URLs to canonical →
2. stop AMP monitoring in GSCA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results. → 4. confirm errors clear.

Validate: AMP Test (search.google.com/test/amp), Rich ResultsRich results (formerly 'rich snippets') are enhanced search listings — stars, images, prices, breadcrumbs, video thumbnails, and more — that Google and Bing build from structured data. They're a display feature, not a ranking factor, and eligibility never guarantees they'll show. Test, GSC AMP status report.

AMP audit commands

Find AMP relationships in a crawl export

Use this regular expression in a crawlerA crawler — also called a spider or bot — is an automated program that fetches web pages, extracts their links, and queues new URLs to visit. Search engines use crawlers to discover and download content for their index.’s custom extraction against HTML source:

<link\s+[^>]*rel=["'](?:amphtml|canonical)["'][^>]*href=["']([^"']+)["'][^>]*>

Capture group 1 returns the linked AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. or canonical URLHow search engines pick one canonical URL among duplicates and consolidate signals onto it.. Review the extracted pairs for missing, cross-domain, or many-to-one mappings.

Check an AMP redirect during removal

Run in a terminal and replace the example URL:

curl -sSIL https://example.com/article/amp/

The first response should be a permanent redirectA 301 redirect is the HTTP status code for a permanent move: it tells browsers and search engines a URL has moved for good, and it's the strongest signal for consolidating a page's ranking signals onto the new URL. Google says permanent redirects don't cause a loss in PageRank. and its final destination should be the exact canonical article, without an avoidable chain.

Inventory AMP links in the current document

Run this in Chrome DevTools Console on a canonical or AMP page:

[...document.querySelectorAll('link[rel="amphtml"], link[rel="canonical"]')].map(link => ({ rel: link.rel, href: link.href }))

Tools for maintaining or removing AMP

• AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. Validator: Check whether the published document conforms to AMP’s markup rules after template and component changes.
• Search ConsoleA free Google service that reports how a site performs in Google Search and surfaces problems with how Google crawls, indexes, and serves it. It's first-party data straight from Google — but you don't need it to appear in results. URL InspectionA Google Search Console feature that reports how Google sees one specific URL on a property you own. By default it shows the last-indexed snapshot; a separate \"Test live URL\" mode fetches the current version.: Compare the indexedStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed. canonical and rendered output for representative canonical and AMP URLs.
• Search ConsoleGoogle's free tool for monitoring crawling, indexing, and search performance. AMP status reporting: Use it while AMP remains deployed to find template-wide validity failures, then expect the inventory to decline after a planned removal.
• PageSpeed InsightsPageSpeed Insights (PSI) is a free Google tool at pagespeed.web.dev that reports two kinds of data for a URL: real-user field data from the Chrome UX Report and a single Lighthouse lab run with the 0–100 Performance score. Only the field Core Web Vitals are what Google uses for ranking.: Confirm the canonical replacement meets the performance goal AMP was serving; test the canonical URLHow search engines pick one canonical URL among duplicates and consolidate signals onto it., not just the cached AMP copy.
• A crawlerA crawler — also called a spider or bot — is an automated program that fetches web pages, extracts their links, and queues new URLs to visit. Search engines use crawlers to discover and download content for their index. with custom extraction: Inventory amphtml/canonical pairs and verify every retired AMP URL redirectsA redirect sends browsers and crawlers from a requested URL to a different one. An HTTP redirect specifically is a 3xx status code paired with a Location header; meta refresh and JavaScript redirects achieve a similar navigation without being a 3xx response themselves. Permanent redirects (301/308) are Google's signal the target should be canonical; temporary ones (302/303/307) aren't. to its corresponding canonical.

Validate an AMP change

Test canonical pairing after an AMP template release

Test to run: Crawl representative pairs and extract amphtml and canonical links. Expected result: The canonical points to one matching AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. URL and the AMP page points back to that canonical. Failure interpretation: Discovery or consolidation signals are broken. Monitoring window: Immediate. Rollback trigger: Missing, crossed, or many-to-one mappings appear.

Test an AMP removal redirect

Test to run: Request a sample from every AMP URL pattern with redirectA redirect sends browsers and crawlers from a requested URL to a different one. An HTTP redirect specifically is a 3xx status code paired with a Location header; meta refresh and JavaScript redirects achieve a similar navigation without being a 3xx response themselves. Permanent redirects (301/308) are Google's signal the target should be canonical; temporary ones (302/303/307) aren't. following disabled, then enabled. Expected result: One permanent hop to the exact canonical equivalent, which returns successfully. Failure interpretation: The migration map is incomplete or chained. Monitoring window: Immediate after deploy and through recrawlCrawl frequency is how often a search engine comes back to re-fetch a page it already knows about. Popular pages that change often get refreshed many times a day; stable pages can go weeks or months between crawls — and you influence it indirectly, not by setting a dial.. Rollback trigger: Any AMP URL errors, loops, or lands on a generic page.

Test the canonical replacement experience

Test to run: Run the canonical target through PageSpeed InsightsPageSpeed Insights (PSI) is a free Google tool at pagespeed.web.dev that reports two kinds of data for a URL: real-user field data from the Chrome UX Report and a single Lighthouse lab run with the 0–100 Performance score. Only the field Core Web Vitals are what Google uses for ranking. and analytics QA. Expected result: The replacement meets the team’s established mobile-performance baseline and preserves expected measurement. Failure interpretation: AMP was removed before its delivery or tracking role was replaced. Monitoring window: Lab checks immediately; field dataPerformance metrics captured from real users, not lab tests. over its normal rolling window. Rollback trigger: Systematic performance regression or loss of required measurement after migration.

Test yourself: AMP SEO

Five quick questions on what AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. is, what it does, and where it stands now. Pick an answer for each, then check.

Resources worth your time

My writing

• The Beginner’s Guide to Technical SEO — where mobile performance and AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. fit in the bigger picture.

My speaking

• AMP: Do or die? — SMX West 2018 session recap (Search Engine Land) — my “angry old man” take arguing that AMP may not be the right solution for every company, especially large enterprises with complex structures and functionality AMP can’t support.

Official

• Google — About AMP and Validate AMP pages.
• Google — More details on the page experience update (April 2021) — AMP no longer required for Top Stories.

From around the industry

• Why we’re turning off AMP pages at Search Engine Land — a major publisher’s decision to drop AMP.
• What happened when we turned off AMP (Search Engine Land) — the post-mortem: very little traffic disruption, clearer audience analytics.
• Will publishers drop AMP when it’s no longer required for Top Stories? (Search Engine Land).
• Google AMP is dead! (Plausible Analytics) — the “AMP is declining” angle, plus the antitrust-scrutiny context behind Google dropping the requirement.
• Google AMP & SEO: Everything You Need to Know (Search Engine Journal) — a technical how-to including canonical handling.
• Good news: Google no longer requires publishers to use AMP (The Register) — coverage of the Core Web VitalsGoogle's three real-user UX metrics — LCP (loading), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability) — used by Google's ranking systems, with no official weight attached, measured on field data. switch.

Videos

• Google Search Central (YouTube) — the How Google Search WorksSearch works in three stages — crawling, indexing, and serving (ranking). A page has to clear each one to appear in results: getting crawled doesn't mean you're indexed, and getting indexed doesn't mean you rank. series and Martin Splitt’s page-experience and Core Web VitalsGoogle's three real-user UX metrics — LCP (loading), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability) — used by Google's ranking systems, with no official weight attached, measured on field data. explainers, which cover the performance signals that replaced AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. for Top Stories. Channel

AMP

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories.

Related: Core Web Vitals, Mobile SEO

AMP

AMPAMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework Google launched in 2015 to make mobile pages load near-instantly via restricted HTML/CSS/JS and CDN caching. It was never a ranking factor and, since June 2021, is no longer required for Top Stories. (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source web framework that Google launched in 2015 and made available in Google Search in October 2015. It lets publishers build stripped-down, fast-loading versions of their pages by restricting what HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are allowed, requiring a specific AMP JS library, and serving pages through Google’s CDN (the Google AMP Cache). Those tight constraints — async-only JavaScript, inline CSS capped at 75KB, statically declared resource dimensions — let Google safely prerenderThe Speculation Rules API is a Chromium browser API (Chrome/Edge 109+) that lets a site tell the browser which same-site pages to prefetch (download the HTML document) or prerender (fully load and render in an invisible tab) before a visitor clicks — so the next navigation can be near-instant. It's a browser-side performance feature for real users, not a crawling, indexing, or ranking signal. AMP pages before a user taps the result, which is where the speed comes from.

Two facts matter most for SEO. First, AMP has never been a ranking factor — Google Search Central says so plainly. Speed matters for rankings; AMP is just one way to get there, not the only one. Second, AMP is no longer required for the Top Stories carousel. As of the June 2021 Page ExperienceGoogle's three real-user UX metrics — LCP (loading), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability) — used by Google's ranking systems, with no official weight attached, measured on field data. update, Core Web VitalsGoogle's three real-user UX metrics — LCP (loading), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability) — used by Google's ranking systems, with no official weight attached, measured on field data. replaced AMP as the eligibility signal, and Google removed the AMP badge (the lightning-bolt icon) from search results at the same time.

AMP pages are usually still served from the Google AMP Cache under a google.com/amp/s/... URL. Signed Exchange (SXG) can serve an AMP page under the publisher’s own URL instead, but it only works in Chrome. The canonical relationship pairs a non-AMP page (self-canonical, with a rel="amphtml" pointing to the AMP version) with an AMP page (rel="canonical" pointing back to the non-AMP version).

Today AMP is optional and declining. For new projects there’s no strategic reason to implement it; for existing implementations, weigh the operational cost against the shrinking benefit. Core Web VitalsWeb Vitals is Google's initiative (launched May 2020) for unified page-experience quality signals. Core Web Vitals — LCP, INP, and CLS — are the subset used in ranking; the rest (TTFB, FCP, TBT, Speed Index) are diagnostic, not ranking factors. — not AMP — are what matter for performance-related search signals and Top Stories eligibility.

Related: Core Web Vitals, Mobile SEO

Changelog