Surely you can see the less attractive aspects of Google's AMP cache?
They inject a carousel, push the organics down. Then you have to publish AMP to make it into the carousel.
At which point Google takes over your page. Adding a big amp banner with a [x] button that doesn't do what users expect. Inserting a pagination widget that scrolls to competing content, breaking the back button, etc. Is it a coincidence that all of that drives more pageviews of Google's site? Is it really your page if you don't control it?
Why do we always have to talk about the carousel? It is only relevant for news/trending topics. For that the whole "organics" are upended regardless.
Is it a coincidence that all of that drives more pageviews of Google's site?
I really, really don't think Google cares about "pageviews". But yes, it may make users think "these results are quick and convenient, so maybe I won't use Facebook as much for trending topics".
The investor pressure on Google to sustain year over year click growth, that exceeds overall web growth...is tremendous.
Driving more pageviews is one of a very few levers they have to do that, since they have exhausted many others. Once you push all organics off the fold, there's not much else you can do.
Edit: We talk about the carousel, because it perhaps best telegraphs the true intent of AMP. Everyone told me to shut up about Froogle too, because it was free for advertisers.
If you followed what they did over time with Wikipedia content and links
Search has evolved past a list of links. Every vendor in the space is doing exactly the same thing -- becoming a knowledge engine versus a keyword corpus. Yes, Google wants to create a useful product. Nothing particularly nefarious about that.
Driving more pageviews is one of a very few levers they have to do that, since they have exhausted many others.
When has Google published pageviews? Google publishes revenue and income, and userbases for a few properties and products. They don't publish or gloat about pageviews, and it is entirely irrelevant if they serve you a page from a cache or not. But yes, they probably worry that as the web gets more user hostile, users might choose silos like Facebook Instant Article, where Facebook ads might be more likely, but in that case we're talking about user likes and dislikes which is tough to argue against.
We talk about the carousel, because it perhaps best telegraphs the true intent of AMP
Is this not FUD? Reading the tea leaves and discerning the future. Personally I find Android Instant Apps a dramatically bigger threat to the vague idea of the web.
Didn't say they did. They have, though, clearly done things to keep people on their properties vs straying off to the organics. Which is the same thing as pageviews.
Why else, for example, would hitting the back button 2 stories deep into a carousel AMP article not go back one article...but go all the way back to Google?
They don't publish their CTR for search pages either. You think that means they don't track goals for it internally?
Edit: Regarding this...
"Is this not FUD? Reading the tea leaves and discerning the future. Personally I find Android Instant Apps a dramatically bigger threat to the vague idea of the web."
Phrased as if I said AMP was their sole strategy. Of course they have multiple ideas to placate the investors that are used to double digit percentage YOY click growth. One does tend to focus on search since that's where the vast majority of their revenue is.
As for tea leaves, sustaining the same growth of stock price almost requires anti consumer and anti partner behavior.
Why else, for example, would hitting the back button 2 stories deep into a carousel AMP article not go back one article...but go all the way back to Google?
Given that it doesn't do this, at all, I'm not sure how to respond. Yes, if you open a story in the carousel and then swipe to the next story via the machinations of the carousel, then clicking back goes back to "google". But if you follow "organic" links it goes to a rote web experience.
Phrased as if I said AMP was their sole strategy
No, it's phrased as if you said exactly what you said, and needs no strawman. Whether you hit a Google cache or a host site means exactly squat. Google's core intention, it seems, is simply to try to provide a good experience for the user which is indeed a long term income strategy.
It does though. On a mobile, go to google and search "Trump
". Click a carousel article. You're now on somebody's "AMP Cached Page", right? Let's say it's WaPo. Now right swipe, and you'll go to a competitor's site...say Fox News. Now click back. You'll go back to Google instead of WaPo. And, I did specifically say this was with a "Carousel AMP Article". You're not really being fair by saying "doesn't do this". It absolutely does.
The point though. It isn't that this one choice to hijack the back button is the whole strategy.
It's indicative of a larger strategy to use UI patterns that keep people on Google properties and off of other people's. Which is kind of an odd way for a search engine to work.
But it doesn't. You said two levels deep, but what you just described isn't at all. AMP is the container with the list of articles, and back logically and rightfully exits the container. If you clicked a link in one of those stories, it uses entirely normal web behavior. But yes, swiping, a function added by amp, in a container provided by amp, using the list provided by amp, is a lateral move not a depth move.
It isn't that this one choice to hijack the back button
The carousel is an entirely unique construction to provide news, exactly like a hundred other options that use similar paradigms. This, and the "hijack the back button" thing invariably gets dragged into every AMP discussion, as if Google trying to provide a news service is undermining some random blog link.
What I described does happen. You're saying something else doesn't happen...something I never claimed. That's a weird way to argue a point.
You get that the carousel existed before AMP, and didn't do any of this, right? No other page cache takes over the page like this. Digg died an early death, in part, by trying to do something similar. Taking over other people's pages...in their case an iframe.
What about the [x] button on the AMP banner being a back button to Google? Is that not odd? Don't most users expect an [x] on a banner to kill the banner and leave you on the page? Like the EU cookie warnings?
They inject a carousel, push the organics down. Then you have to publish AMP to make it into the carousel.
At which point Google takes over your page. Adding a big amp banner with a [x] button that doesn't do what users expect. Inserting a pagination widget that scrolls to competing content, breaking the back button, etc. Is it a coincidence that all of that drives more pageviews of Google's site? Is it really your page if you don't control it?