Is AMP Worth It
AMP once decided who got into Google's Top Stories carousel; now it is one optional way to build fast pages, with real upkeep costs.
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AMP was built to help publishers load pages fast and once mattered for Top Stories, but Google no longer requires it for that placement.
AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages, is an open-source HTML framework started by Google to help web pages load faster on mobile devices. For a while, many blogs and news sites saw AMP as essential because only AMP pages were eligible for the Top Stories carousel in mobile search results, and AMP results carried a lightning bolt badge. This drove publishers to maintain AMP versions of their articles, even though Google Search indexes AMP pages just like other web pages and applies the same standard to all pages, whatever technology built them.
What Changed in Google Search
The landscape shifted with the page experience update, which Google began rolling out in mid-June 2021 and completed by the end of August 2021. In the post announcing the details, Google wrote that "using the AMP format is no longer required and that any page, irrespective of its Core Web Vitals score or page experience status, will be eligible to appear in the Top Stories carousel." The same post said Google would no longer show the AMP badge icon and would expand the use of non-AMP content in Google News.
This change meant publishers could improve speed with ordinary techniques measured by Core Web Vitals, without keeping a separate AMP version of every article.
What This Means for Site Owners Still Running AMP
Paired AMP pages are a second copy of the site. Every template change, ad setup, analytics tag and consent banner has to be built twice, and AMP validation errors must be watched separately. The two versions are linked in a fixed way: per amp.dev, the regular page carries <link rel="amphtml" href="..."> pointing to the AMP copy, and the AMP page carries <link rel="canonical" href="..."> pointing back to the regular page. A site built only in AMP points the canonical link to itself.
There is no single switch to turn AMP off without risk. Google's guide to removing AMP sets out the order:
- Remove the
rel="amphtml"link from the canonical non-AMP page. - Configure the server to return a 301 or 302 response for each removed AMP URL, redirecting it to the canonical non-AMP page.
- Confirm removal in Google Search or in the AMP status report in Search Console.
Google warns against simply deleting AMP files: an empty document is invalid, and Google may keep serving the oldest valid version it has. After switching off an AMP plugin or theme, test a few old AMP URLs to confirm they redirect rather than return errors. Plugin and Search Console menu names can change.
When AMP May Still Make Sense
AMP can still be reasonable where it is the whole site rather than a parallel copy, for example a small publication whose theme is built in AMP and already performs well. It also keeps working if the team has no capacity to rebuild fast templates and the AMP version is stable. Any publisher with paired AMP pages should ask whether AMP provides value that a well-built regular page cannot. If not, the path forward may not include AMP.
