Google wants to improve mobile web performance

Google met with technology companies and publishers recently to discuss the issue of slow loading websites on mobile, an issue they believe causes significant revenue loss for website owners.

Following the talks, they've launched the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project. As you can probably tell from the name, the aim is to improve mobile browsing performance, but it's also to better how code functions across all the different devices available today.

The project is built on AMP HTML, "a new open framework built entirely out of existing web technologies, which allows websites to build light-weight webpages."

More than 30 publishers have signed on to start. Among them: Wordpress and Twitter.

Below, you can read up on some of Google's plans for AMP in the coming months.

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.