Bitesize blog: What is AMP?

The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project is an open-source library designed to make mobile pages faster. With the majority of web sessions now taking place on mobile, and the number of mobile-only markets increasing, loading times have become a major UX barrier and conversion killer.

AMP aims to solve this problem by providing a relatively simple framework that makes it easier to create fast, engaging experiences on mobile.

What problems does AMP actually solve?

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The framework makes mobile web pages faster and helps brands monetise their pages with non-intrusive ads designed for the mobile experience. There are three key speed killers that it solves:

• Server requests: Cuts the number of server requests – the biggest cause of slow loading times.
• Bloated code: Provides its own stripped-down versions of HTML and JavaScript to stop bloated code from clogging up the browser.
• AMPHTML ads: A faster, lighter and more secure alternative to traditional HTML ads that don’t slow down pages or get in the way of the user experience.

By cutting down on the number of resources your pages need to load, this means less time is spent between your website’s server and people’s web browsers trying to sort everything out.

In most cases, your AMP pages are served by an AMP cache as well, which loads your content almost instantly.

Crucially, your content loads before any ads appear on the page so people can engage with it right away. If you don’t have ads, your text content still loads first while the images progressively load as users scroll down.

Related article: 9 reasons your website doesn’t work on mobile

Need advice?

If you have any questions about AMP, our specialists will be more than happy to help. Just give us a call on 023 9283 0281.