Google is taking on the problem of slow loading mobile web pages. One would logically think with faster LTE and WiFi speeds that web pages should load faster as speeds increase, but more often than not we find ourselves running into slow loading websites on our mobile devices. With plug-ins, videos, advertisements and other content many websites are being bogged down creating an unpleasant experience.
No one wins when web pages take too long to load. Readers simply go to another website and miss out on content that could be of value while advertisers lose out on potential customers.
In order to fix this problem, Google has been in discussions with publishers and tech companies globally and has joined an open source initiative called the Accelerated Mobile Pages(AMP). The purpose of the AMP is to dramatically reduce slow web page load times and improve the performance of the mobile web.
Instead of creating proprietary software, this initiative is an open source project using existing web technologies(AMP HTML) which in turn will allow others to use the standards and hopefully increase the adoption rate benefitting everyone. To kick off this project Google has announced that 30 publishers will be taking part in giving us a better mobile experience. Some of the companies include Twitter, Pinterest, WordPress.com, BBC, The Huffington Post, The New York Times and LinkedIn.
Google used the video below as an example of how fast web pages can load on a mobile device using the Accelerated Mobile Pages HTML:
Google is planning to add more features listed below:
- Content: Publishers increasingly rely on rich content like image carousels, maps, social plug-ins, data visualizations, and videos to make their stories more interactive and stand out. They also need to implement ads and analytics in order to monetize the content and to understand what their readers like and dislike. The Accelerated Mobile Pages Project provides an open source approach, allowing publishers to focus on producing great content, while relying on the shared components for high performance and great user experience. The initial technical specification—developed with input and code from our partners in the publishing and technology sectors—is being released today on GitHub.
- Distribution: Publishers want people to enjoy the great journalism they create anywhere and everywhere, so stories or content produced in Spain can be served in an instant across the globe in, say, Chile. That means distribution across all kinds of devices and platforms is crucial. So, as part of this effort, we’ve designed a new approach to caching that allows the publisher to continue to host their content while allowing for efficient distribution through Google’s high performance global cache. We intend to open our cache servers to be used by anyone free of charge.
- Advertising: Ads help fund free services and content on the web. With Accelerated Mobile Pages, we want to support a comprehensive range of ad formats, ad networks and technologies. Any sites using AMP HTML will retain their choice of ad networks, as well as any formats that don’t detract from the user experience. It’s also a core goal of the project to support subscriptions and paywalls. We’ll work with publishers and those in the industry to help define the parameters of an ad experience that still provides the speed we’re striving for with AMP.
Cheers to Google for tackling a problem that is getting out of hand.
Source – Google Blog
