In your experience, is Google AMP not necessary when using wp2static?

Hello all,

in your own experience, is Google AMP not necessary when using wp2static?

Thanks!

(originally posted by @levycarneiro before forum migration)

(originally commented by @john_shaffer before forum migration)

I would not recommend AMP for any website. It lets Google take your traffic with no benefit to you.

Google is phasing out their AMP requirements in favor of other rating systems.

I agree with John here, that AMP is a terrible thing for the internet that nobody should use / feed the beast.

That said, I’d expect any WP static site generators to support exporting the AMP URLs, I’m not sure today which ones do.

G’day,

I know this is and old topic, but…

Publii supports AMP. So does Hugo and some of the others. However… They do it using the yoursite.nul/amp/ method. Which was never very good for SEO, but very good for Google.

I’ve fiddled with AMP several times. It’s simply too restrictive in what you can do. Even a very basic website becomes sorely dysfunctional quickly.

The aim of reducing the amount of garbage CSS and JS on a page is a good one. But as others have pointed out the benefits for the site are better served writing optimal code or reducing the excess baggage.

Google’s announced focus on Core Web Vitals is a better goal. Though the reality is most sites simply can’t consistently provide a rich user experience and score even in the “good” range.

IMHO tools like WP2Static etc would be better served linking to optimisation tools that can help folks minimise css, js, images etc. Most WordPress themes in use begin poorly anyway. Sows Ear vs Silk Purse.

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A great user experience is wasted for a site with content that’s counter-productive to society, ie selling more crap or pushing misinformation.

I get good feels when someone’s using WP2Static for a non-profit or artist’s site.

If the content isn’t good enough to draw people in/stand on its own, it’s probably not going to be around in 10-20 yrs time, in which case - why bother? Spoiler: $

Sorry, waking up on the cynical side of bed today :slight_smile:

Also @cdroo, welcome from over here in SA!

@leonstafford

Thanks for the welcome. Being in Vic (Virus Central :wink: ) SA is off-limits. Pity. Was planning a trip to Mount Gambier and Naracoorte later this year. Not likely now!

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Cynicism is fine. Its kind of like the bodies reaction to thick smoke. Sometimes you just gotta cough it out. :crazy_face:

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Happy to show you around the Eyre Peninsula if ever you can make it this far - not exactly the most amazing towns, but superb coastline all around.

My parents are (hopefully not literally) dying to come and check it out - they live in Daylesford.

Thanks, @leonstafford - good fishing around the Eyre Peninsula. Appreciate the offer and will take it up if I get there. Daylesford is a nice place. I spent a lot of time working in the general area in the '80s. Installing and writing code for scanning systems (frontend and backend) into Stoneman’s supermarkets that were popping up in that region back then. My first professional coding gig was in retail systems. Ancient brochure of the complete (store level) system here: https://snapper.getfished.fish/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/dts.jpeg The systems were kept updated with mainframes via 600 baud modems. The “code” was loaded in with suitcase-sized tape cassette loaders. The terminals were “coded” by bit flipping - though we often used direct hex. Hex, Oct and even binary were your best friend. All dumped out onto paper printouts. :rofl:

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Super cool!

I grew up around some fairly old equipment, but wish I had’ve got into coding much earlier!

Would love for you to come and teach me how to clean a fish! I feel I’m wasting all the free food around here. Squid off the jetty, etc.

Anyway, hope the WP -> static journey is going OK for you. Still slow progress on the code at the moment, but starting to refresh docs across board, add some videos and get a 2nd release/much simplified version of Lokl out that I’m as excited about as anything I can be these days :stuck_out_tongue:

More than happy to show you how to clean a fish!

There’s a plastic tool available that works really well for cleaning squid. Has a Youtube video that goes with it. I got mine from an Anaconda store. But they are widely available. Makes it pretty easy.

WP → static is working out extremely well. It’s the removal of the DB that I love the most. Speedwise I can cache WP to the same levels of so-called “speed”. However, what a tool says is fast vs what human’s experience as fast are two totally different things. Static wins there with consistency (fewer bandwidth bottlenecks).

So I’m loving it. I’ve written a few shell scripts to clean up some of the folders to meet what I need, plus to merge the static site into Git, compress css, HTML, js and media etc.

Really appreciate the plugin. Thank you!

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Ah, grand! Great to hear it’s working out for you!

And I should really get into the squidding. The lures/jigs seem relatively simple, too. Last time to a nearby beach here and got to admire a seal diving along the coast :smiley:

I’ve had a seal snatch a squid right off the squid jig down at San Remo (near Phillip Island.) :crazy_face:

If you’re buying squid jigs I’d recommend not buying the cheaper “packs of 3” etc, but spend a few dollars on the better ones. They last longer and seem to be better at the actual catching. I’ve had more success spending $10 a jig than $10 for 3.

Must write a squid article. Rather than fill up your tech forum. LOL!

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I did leave an uncategorized section on purpose :smiley:

We’re still in very early stages of this forum adoption, so I think squidding tips will only improve things!

Was somewhere down PI way at my uncle’s for Xmas - supposedly a beachfront property, but all we could see was smoke :stuck_out_tongue: Ah, the good 'ol days, when we used masks for smoke inhalation only!

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Google AMP is important for some Static users.

  1. For getting in Top Stories
  2. For getting in Discover app to get “Large card” for AMP users while small for non-amp.
  3. AMP is suitable for News publisher, because nobody like getting bombarded with advt. AMP put a little control on it.
  4. I like AMP and dislike both. I think “signed AMP is better approach”. It doesn’t open inside google.com but standalone.
    amp
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@gulshan

Presently. Yes, it is. But not moving into the future. See link (if you’re not already aware of it.)

https://searchengineland.com/amp-wont-be-required-for-googles-top-stories-section-335276#:~:text=When%20Google’s%20Page%20Experience%20Update,for%20the%20top%20stories%20section.&text=Google%20announced%20today%20a%20new,Stories%20section%20in%20Google%20search.

I feel AMP would be last resort of Google if web doesn’t become fast by the end of 2022!

Web could be a lot faster by removing much of the bloat and ads/JavaScript mess.

gzip’d War & Peace novel weighs only 1.4MB

Apple.com is twice that!

@leonstafford

Yup. Agreed. All things about the web are about scaling of course, too. So - the more websites with massive sliders and full-width unoptimized images etc, etc the worse it’s become. I never thought for a minute Google (or Yahoo) cared about the publics lack of bandwidth as much as their own crawling it. Exponential growth means exponential expense.

Some of the worst code out there in terms of optimization comes from Google’s labs. Adsense, G. Analytics etc.

Unfortunately, all of us have to try to eat, somehow. Admittedly I run Adsense on some sites. The ads break Googles own guidelines on site speed. Even more so with the advent of Core Web Vitals. Screen shift goes through the roof. This is one of the reasons why I believe a whole lot of “ranking factors” aren’t ranking factors at all. Tests conducted by some SEO’s seem to support this. Particularly the extreme ends of site speed. Merely carrots and big sticks designed to goad people into optimization, all the while realising they are only shaving off the top layers. Some of the crappiest sites - in terms of site speed scores - outrank everything else in their vertical market Talking sub “50/100” scores.

Not to mention - optimization speed according to an algo is often slower when it comes to the experience a user has viewing the same site. An instant page load in your browser can receieve a terrible algo based page speed score.

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