Accelerated Mobile Pages

On 7th October, Google and partners announced a new standard for coding websites is in early stages of development. Accelerated Mobile Pages (or AMP) is a new, stripped down code base to allow website developers the ability to create pages specifically for mobile devices.

We’ve always been able to do this I hear you say? Well yes, but there has been no standard for developers to work towards. We’ve always used best practice, but everyone’s best practice differs. Currently many “mobile” and “responsive” websites are exactly the same as desktop websites in terms of payload – they load in the same images, scripts and content and then display them differently. This works but it makes the experience slow and ponderous on most mobiles due to screen size, connection and processor speed.

The solution offered by AMP is a library of code and scripts which are optimised for mobile use, which can be dipped into by coders, but provide lightening-quick loading and rendering of website pages. Only the part of the page you are viewing will load – so if a website page has 10 images but you only view 2 images, the scripts will not bother downloading the other 8 images.They will forbid a lot of the ‘junk’ which comes with mobile websites pages such as pop-up ads, modal windows and loading screens. As we will be working towards a standard, we have a road map to follow. And the best news of all is that WordPress will support AMP, which is our Content Management Systems of choice.

We are very excited by this move – the future of the Internet is with handheld and mobile devices, and we will ensure we are at the forefront of this development to provide websites with deliver the most returns on investment regardless of the end user’s device and connection speed.