Is Joomla Joining the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project?

[scarney]

Google announced the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project today at https://www.ampproject.org

I am wondering if Joomla is going to build this into their framework anytime soon?

I see that apparently WordPress is on board. I hope Joomla can get there just as fast. Here is a question from their FAQ at https://www.ampproject.org/faq/

How can a publisher get content into AMP HTML?
Publishers and Content Management System (CMS) providers can develop an integration with their CMS to generate AMP content. We hope that all content management systems will add support for AMP HTML pages. For example, WordPress.com has announced that it will integrate the AMP framework. In addition to WordPress.com, we hope other commercial CMS providers will support the project in the weeks and months to come.

[AlexVega]

Hi there!

Here you can see the roadmap for future versions:
http://developer.joomla.org/cms/roadmap.html

Cheers!

[alikon]

after a quick reading sounds interesting
even i've not fully understand
i'd suggest you to post on https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/joomla-dev-cms
you'll get more qualifyied audience

[Claudia_A]

Agreed, this project is quite interesting indeed. Perhaps this should be considered for the J! 4.x series to come.

[mandville]

Is this the "technology" where you are reading a page and the point you are looking at keeps jumping around and the images (advert) loads after the text?

[Claudia_A]

It doesn't look like the point of focus keeps jumping around, but yes, the ads load after the text. Sometimes I wish ads wouldn't load at all, if the article is interesting enough...
In any case, if you are curious, I found this demo to be quite revealing: {https://www.[youtube].com/watch?v=i2_lAEzmOPo} << edited link, hope it works.

[mrm785]

My entire purpose of registering is based on furthering the discussion of SEO. I have used multiple content management systems and Joomla is by far my favorite thus far. However integrating code for SEO purposes can be a real hassle and repetitive since plugins for Schema and other meta-data can be a bit of a hassle. Now with Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project, SEO will be changing again sometime in the first half of 2016.

Because of all of these challenges, I am reaching out to the Joomla community for ideas on how to best integrate HTML5, Schema, and AMP functionality into the Joomla Platform.

For those who haven't heard of the AMP project here is the URL: https://www.ampproject.org. In addition to verify what I am saying is true in the text from an email I received from Danny Bernstein at Google upon submitting a question to their contact us form.

Hello -
Thank you so much for reaching out about the AMP Project. We are still making our way through the emails we received today, and hope to be in touch soon. There is no reason to wait however (!) -- the initial AMP technical spec can already be found on https://github.com/ampproject, and we will monitor StackOverflow as the conversations gets going there as well.

You can see a full list of partners and publishers supporting AMP, as well as additional information about the AMP Project here. While we’re at an early stage in rolling this out, and we don't expect to launch AMPs in Google Search until the first half of next year.

Additionally, you can now go to g.co/ampdemo on a mobile device to play with AMP in a test environment.

Very best,
Danny

[Spitz]

hi everybody
- @alexvega, google amp is definitely something fundamental. Where can I submit this to enter into 3.6?
- this thread should move to joomla dev forum!
- I suggest to change the title of this thread into "Is Joomla Joining the Google AMP Project?"

[AlexVega]

- @alexvega, google amp is definitely something fundamental. Where can I submit this to enter into 3.6?

Hi there!

It seems that you has have started the topic in:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... nm0AabEbDg

I recommend to follow the topic to know future posts about it.

Cheers!

[Webdongle]

Update so far ...

Three active Bugsquad Members (including myself) have been banned from the Dev's mailing list for asking questions about the Google AMP project.

Here are my last two posts

@Brian

"At this point we don't know. Please allow those people tasked with INVESTIGATING this the time to do their task"


Nobody has suggested otherwise. Concerns have been raised and questions asked. There have been various posts from several people (including devs) questioning the usefulness of AMP. But nobody has posted anything against investigating. In fact asking questions and expressing concerns is encouraging it not disparaging it.

Although AMP may not be a useful tool to have ... it may be necessary for it to be an option to use in Joomla so that Joomla is flexible to the needs of some users. I am not against AMP per se ... I only express my concerns and question if it is relevant for Joomla. And for that I am accused of ridiculing the devs when I make a general comment about the hype that surrounds AMP. The culture I speak of is that generally (on the internet) not the Joomla devs. In fact I have been impressed recently of how fast Michael and other devs have responded to my posts and fixed bugs that have been reported in the forums.

As for AMP ... it would seem that only one person posting in this thread has made their mind up as to if it should be included. And the person is not me. imho 4 questions should be asked

1. Would it allow Google to collect metrics about visitors to sites built with Joomla ?
2. Could it be incorporated into Joomla ?
3. If it could be incorporated into Joomla how would it be done ?
4. Would it be useful or not to Joomla ?

If you look closely at my posts (about Google AMP) you will see that all my questions pertain to one of those 4 issues.

@Hannes

"3. A template"


Giving users the ability to create/use a Google AMP Template could possibly help attract more Joomla users. But that could be done without the AMP code being incorporated into Joomla couldn't it ?

[NivF007]

@Webdongle - I may also be banned, not sure , but definitely wanted to keep the discussion going.

If you haven't read it, I definitely think this article is worth a read - it basically summed up all my views about AMP in general - very mixed feelings.

Get AMP’d: Here’s what publishers need to know about Google’s new plan to speed up your website

Some key points:

- Unless you have a very a plain web site, there is likely no getting around developing "parallel websites," with some pages using AMP, and others that include rich-media or other features that require 3rd party JavaScript that AMP blocks. There is no such capability through AMP for progressive enhancement, or RWD - except in a super-restricted way, which IMO, sets RWD backwards in exchange for mobile performance.

As one person commented, "I hope you like your toast plain."

- Because 3rd party JavaScript is blocked, there needs to be a way to restrict non-compliant content from AMP pages

- It's going to be all about speed. So just having a different template (if that template renders slowly) and includes modules which have a high latency - then it defeats the purpose of using AMP (Google has promised that's SERPs won't favour AMP, but will favour speed - regardless of technology)

The good news here is that it works. AMP pages, done right, are blazingly fast - and that's been the holy-grail of mobile-first design - but if you like rich-media, and anything that relies on 3rd party JavaScript - well you can't have your cake and eat it to.

With AMP, I kind of feel like somebody just gave me a Porsche, but there's only one car seat.

---

The bottom line is that there is going to need to be some implementation for Joomla!, and it would best that such is 'baked into the core' - with a suitable architecture that minimizes latency and allows AMP pages to render as quickly as possible. This is key - other there is no value add in using AMP.

With respect to your concerns "1. Would it allow Google to collect metrics about visitors to sites built with Joomla?" Jessica Dunbar who is currently leading the AMP team has asked to provide a list of questions which would be forwarded to the Google liaison on this project.

I'm just not sure where to post those questions at this time, but will update if I get an update.

Cheers,

N

[NivF007]

Turns out, I'm being 'moderated'...not sure why, but not prepared to make an issue out of it for the sake of keeping on focus.

I hope your ban is reversed as as soon as possible. Myself and many others didn't think it was fair.

BACK TO AMP

This is just my view - with respect to the handling of Google AMP, I have yet to see anything circumspect about how the Leadership has handled this - in fact, as a Joomler, I'd very much like to see this capability integrated as a core feature and appreciate the initiative.

The advantages it gives Google, to quote the article linked in my post above

Get AMP’d: Here’s what publishers need to know about Google’s new plan to speed up your website

Google’s incentive here is obvious: It makes its money on advertising, and the vast majority of that advertising is on the open web. If Facebook (or some other platform, but seriously, Facebook) provides a markedly better mobile experience than the open web does, those advertising opportunities (and that user data) disappears into Zuckerberg’s Walled Garden of Earthly Delights.

In the end, however, AMP is just a Front-End Framework similar to Bootstrap, with the key differences

- Bootstrap's goal is to provide a comprehensive framework geared towards rich-interfaces and responsive web design;

- AMP's goal is to provide a 'blazingly fast' mobile experience.

I cannot fathom any reason why the Joomla Project should not adopt and incorporate AMP

I am however interested in understanding the technology, how it can best be implemented and how to best work with the Joomla community on some 'best-practices' guidance so that we all can benefit.

As the mobile market continues to gain an ever increasing share of web traffic, speed is going to be more and more relevant and it will continue to have an ever increasing impact on SERP rankings.

If Joomla wants to be a CMS of choice for publishers, then we need to be sure that we are on top of these trends.

N

[Webdongle]

...
I hope your ban is reversed as as soon as possible. Myself and many others didn't think it was fair....

Doubt it will ever be reversed ... even if it was reversed I doubt if I would bother posting on there again. The whole 'atmosphere' of Joomla has seemed to change id a bad way over the last few years. Regardless of whether or not AMP is incorporated into Joomla I doubt I will bother too much about the Joomla project.

As for AMP I have seen some posts where it suggests that Google will favour sites that use it and rank them higher in the search results. When (or if) it is widely adopted it will be interesting to analyse search results. Time will tell if AMP will be any use to a site or not ... and it will certainly be interesting to see if it takes off.

[NivF007]

As for AMP I have seen some posts where it suggests that Google will favour sites that use it and rank them higher in the search results.

I've seen this also in various articles, and it will form part of the questions I'm going to submit to the team to pass on to the Google liaison.

However, the official word from Google is that they are not going to advantage AMP pages, but will advantage page load speed when it comes to SERP rankings.

So, if we are to trust Google, a page using AMP depreciated HTML (i.e. those tags disallowed in the AMP standard), ceteris paribus, would rank higher than exactly the same AMP compliant page if it where a faster page-load.

The question is, do you trust Google's guidance? (Rhetorical question - there is much debate pro and against in SEO world on this topic).

[Webdongle]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/g ... peech.html

http://skift.com/2015/11/04/google-face ... n-mapping/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32083188

[NivF007]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/g ... peech.html

http://skift.com/2015/11/04/google-face ... n-mapping/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32083188

These correlate to

1. US court rules Google's search results qualify as free speech

In brief, U.S. court ruled that Google can display whichever search results they want, in whatever way they want - citing freedom of speech.

I support this ruling. It's their web site, their software, no one is forcing anyone to use it.

2. Google Faces UK Court Case Over Anti-Competitive Moves in Mapping

In brief, Google gave preferential treatment to its own service via an image display at the top of search results introduced in 2007.

As per article #1, they have right to do that (see comment above). Please note that it's one thing to bring a law suit, another to get a favourable ruling. In the first article above, Google actually won in court, in the #2, there is just a pending law suit, which in my view, Google will likely win on the same grounds.

Although Google currently states they are not advantaging AMP pages, my feeling is that is their position today, let's see what tomorrow's Google policies bring.

If utilizing AMP gives web site owners a competitive edge, IMHO, we'd be doing a huge disservice by not providing that capability to Joomla web site owners.

3. Safari users win right to sue Google over privacy

Whoa!

"They concern what is alleged to have been the secret and blanket tracking and collation of information, often of an extremely private nature… about and associated with the claimants' internet use, and the subsequent use of that information for about nine months. The case relates to the anxiety and distress this intrusion upon autonomy has caused."

...

Google has already paid fines of over $40m related to this incident in the US. It was fined by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and separately by 38 US states.

It appears that Google was in the wrong here, and made to pay for it. I think, therefore, your question about additional privacy/tracking issues is a very warranted one in which Joomla! Leadership ought to ask the Google liaison, and confirm no assumed liability with legal counsel, prior to implementation.

Personally, I'd like to see AMP implemented, but with these appropriate steps taken.

Nice catch!

N

[syco]

OK.... now August 2016 ... have I missed any announcements or does Joomla have any confirmation on whether they will be implementing AMP yet?

[paulwi]

...now October...All is quiet. I too am wondering if Joomla will incorporate AMP.... ?

(There is one extension. But shouldn't it be core? Or at least more extension options. https://extensions.joomla.org/extension ... ty-edition )

[deleted user]

The few of us who cared enough to work on this for core are either too busy with other projects (myself and George carry a heavy workload) or have moved on to other things. And considering that when this came up last year we were basically put in a guillotine for supporting the idea, it's not something I'm eager to return to personally; I'd rather invest my time into working on Joomla! 4.0 or getting our new downloads hub online and into the next development phase.

As for the extension options, AMP is a really tricky thing. Honestly I can't say I'm surprised that Yannick has the only extension capable of converting a full site to AMP.

[paulwi]

Thanks very much for your response. I suspect your Joomla work is a thankless task. But many of us do value it highly and THANK YOU.