Google’s anticipated Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project is already being seen by some searchers ahead of the official February 24 launch date. When searching on a mobile device you may now see a carousel of AMP-compatible pages. Clicking an item in the carousel should instantly load the content in your browser.
If you wish to continue reading more AMP-compatible articles on the subject you searched for, simply swipe right and the next article. Articles you’ve read will be collected in a series of tabs, so you can easily go back to them without having to revisit the original set of search results.
Only some searchers are reporting to see the AMP carousel in Google search at this time. I’m not sure if it’s US-only at the moment or not, but living in Canada I’ve not been able to trigger the AMP carousel no matter what I search for.
However, the AMP project is rolling out and will be seen in everyone’s search results before we know it. Here’s a brief refresher on how to prepare for it.
Creating and Indexing AMP-compatible Pages
AMP-compatible content retains much of the same design elements and features as does a regular web article; including video embeds, images, and ads. It’s also important to note that the same guidelines which make a site Google-friendly also apply to AMP-compatible pages.
When it comes to creating AMP content, some familiarity with HTML is required. Google describes the process for creating AMP’s in this document. Alternatively, if you don’t want to be bothered with coding, WordPress has an official AMP plugin available.
Google says the way it discovers and indexes AMP pages is through the original page linking to it. The non-AMP pages requires a piece of code pointing to the AMP version, and the AMP version requires a canonical link back to the original page. The exact code is included in the help document linked to above.
After creating an AMP-compatible page, you must validate it in order to make sure it will show up correctly in search results. You can validate your first few pages manually; once you have several pieces of AMP content on your site you can refer to the AMP status report within Search Console. This section of Search Console provides a full overview of what has been successfully indexed.
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