by The Computing Australia Group | AMP in 2026: Optimisation Guide
You’re browsing on your phone, you tap a promising result, and… the page crawls. Images pop in late, the layout jumps, a newsletter modal blocks the content, and you’re stuck waiting for the “Buy” button to become clickable. Most people do exactly what you did in your draft: they hit Back and choose a faster competitor.
That frustration is the exact problem AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) set out to solve.
AMP is an open-source framework for building web pages that load quickly – especially on mobile – by using a restricted component set, performance-focused rules, and (often) distribution via caches. In its early years, AMP became popular with publishers because it delivered consistently fast article pages and, at one time, it gave eligibility advantages in certain Google surfaces.
But the web changed. Google’s search experience evolved to focus much more on real-world page performance and user experience metrics (Core Web Vitals), and AMP stopped being a “must-have” for visibility. Google has long since removed the requirement that pages be AMP to appear in Top Stories, shifting attention toward broader page experience and news content policies.
So where does that leave AMP today?
In 2026, AMP is best thought of as one technical approach to delivering fast pages—not the approach. For some sites, it still makes sense. For many others, investing in a high-performing responsive site (without maintaining separate AMP templates) is more practical and sustainable.
This guide covers:
- What AMP is (and how it works)
- Benefits and trade-offs in the modern SEO landscape
- When AMP still makes sense
- A practical, step-by-step AMP optimisation checklist
- Measurement, troubleshooting, and migration considerations
What Is AMP?
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is a web framework that enforces performance best practices through:
1. A limited, performance-safe subset of HTML (often called AMP HTML)
2. A component library (AMP components like amp-img, amp-video, etc.)
3. Validation rules (your page must pass AMP validation to be treated as AMP)
4. Optional caching and pre-rendering (many AMP pages are served from caches, depending on platform and integration)
AMP pages are designed to render quickly by controlling what can block rendering and by encouraging predictable resource loading.
The basic idea
AMP tries to avoid common causes of slow mobile pages:
- Unoptimised images and heavy scripts
- Excessive third-party tags
- Layout shifts caused by late-loading media/ads
- Render-blocking resources
- Complex JavaScript execution at load time
AMP in 2026: Still Relevant or Not?
The honest answer: it depends on your site type and your team’s constraints.
A key shift is that AMP is no longer required for Top Stories eligibility (this change was announced ahead of Google’s Page Experience updates and has been in effect for years).
At the same time, Google encourages site owners to focus on Core Web Vitals as part of measuring real-world user experience.
What that means strategically
- If your non-AMP pages are fast and stable on mobile, AMP usually isn’t necessary.
- If maintaining two versions (canonical + AMP) creates inconsistency, tracking problems, or SEO duplication risk, you may be better off putting that effort into your core site performance.
- If maintaining two versions (canonical + AMP) creates inconsistency, tracking problems, or SEO duplication risk, you may be better off putting that effort into your core site performance.
Benefits of AMP (Modernised)
1) Faster perceived load on mobile
AMP’s strict rules can produce very fast pages—especially for content-heavy articles. You’re starting from a performance-focused baseline.
2) Better user experience on weak connections
Because AMP strongly encourages optimised media and discourages heavy scripts, it can feel smoother on unstable mobile networks.
3) More consistent performance across templates
On some platforms, AMP reduces the risk that individual authors or plugins will accidentally slow down pages.
4) Potentially improved engagement signals
Faster pages tend to reduce abandonment and increase scroll depth—especially on mobile. This isn’t “AMP magic”; it’s the downstream benefit of speed and stability.
5) Cleaner layouts and fewer layout shifts
AMP’s emphasis on declaring dimensions helps reduce unexpected jumps (CLS), if your ads and embeds are also configured properly.
Limitations and Risks You Should Acknowledge
A modern AMP article should be transparent about trade-offs:
1) Two versions = double maintenance
2) Feature constraints
Certain custom JavaScript behaviours and UI patterns don’t translate cleanly into AMP.
3) Analytics and attribution complexity
Cross-domain and cache-delivered experiences can complicate analytics setups if not carefully configured.
4) SEO risks if canonical/AMP pairing is wrong
Misconfigured canonical relationships can cause duplication or indexing confusion. Google provides clear guidance on canonical consolidation principles.
5) The “AMP = rankings” idea is outdated
AMP is not an automatic ranking boost. Google’s visible emphasis is on overall page experience and performance measurement.
When AMP Still Makes Sense
AMP can be a smart choice if most of the following are true:
- You publish news or blog content at scale
- Your CMS already supports AMP cleanly (and your team knows how to maintain it)
- Your performance issues are chronic because of plugin bloat or heavy scripts
- You can keep AMP pages fully equivalent (or intentionally simplified without harming UX)
- Your monetisation stack (ads, subscriptions, paywalls) is AMP-compatible
If you’re an ecommerce business, service site, or lead-gen site with complex interactive UI, AMP is often not worth the constraints-unless you’re using AMP only for informational content pages (blogs, guides, editorial landing pages).
How AMP Works
AMP HTML
AMP pages use standard HTML plus AMP-specific attributes/components, but with restrictions that reduce render-blocking behaviour and enforce predictable layouts.
AMP Components
Instead of arbitrary scripts, you use AMP components for common needs:
- Images
- Video
- Carousels, accordions, forms, and analytics components
Limitations and Risks You Should Acknowledge
1) Two versions = double maintenance
2) Feature constraints
Certain custom JavaScript behaviours and UI patterns don’t translate cleanly into AMP.
- You publish news or blog content at scale
- Your CMS already supports AMP cleanly (and your team knows how to maintain it)
- Your performance issues are chronic because of plugin bloat or heavy scripts
- You can keep AMP pages fully equivalent (or intentionally simplified without harming UX)
- Your monetisation stack (ads, subscriptions, paywalls) is AMP-compatible
Limitations and Risks You Should Acknowledge
1) Two versions = double maintenance
If you run canonical + AMP, you now have two templates to keep consistent: content, headings, internal links, structured data, and tracking.
2) Feature constraints
Certain custom JavaScript behaviours and UI patterns don’t translate cleanly into AMP.
3) Analytics and attribution complexity
Cross-domain and cache-delivered experiences can complicate analytics setups if not carefully configured.
4) SEO risks if canonical/AMP pairing is wrong
Misconfigured canonical relationships can cause duplication or indexing confusion. Google provides clear guidance on canonical consolidation principles.
5) The “AMP = rankings” idea is outdated
AMP is not an automatic ranking boost. Google’s visible emphasis is on overall page experience and performance measurement.
When AMP Still Makes Sense
AMP can be a smart choice if most of the following are true:
- You publish news or blog content at scale
- Your CMS already supports AMP cleanly (and your team knows how to maintain it)
- Your performance issues are chronic because of plugin bloat or heavy scripts
- You can keep AMP pages fully equivalent (or intentionally simplified without harming UX)
- Your monetisation stack (ads, subscriptions, paywalls) is AMP-compatible
If you’re an ecommerce business, service site, or lead-gen site with complex interactive UI, AMP is often not worth the constraints – unless you’re using AMP only for informational content pages (blogs, guides, editorial landing pages).
How AMP Works
AMP HTML
AMP pages use standard HTML plus AMP-specific attributes/components, but with restrictions that reduce render-blocking behaviour and enforce predictable layouts.
AMP Components
Instead of arbitrary scripts, you use AMP components for common needs:
- Images
- Video
- Carousels, accordions, forms, and analytics components
Validation
AMP pages should pass validation to ensure they comply with the framework’s rules.
Discoverability and pairing
If you publish both AMP and non-AMP versions, you must make them discoverable to each other (AMP points to canonical; canonical points to AMP). AMP’s own documentation explains this pairing approach.
How to Optimise AMP Pages: A Practical Checklist
Below is a modernised, real-world optimisation checklist that aligns with performance, SEO, and maintainability.
1) Ensure feature parity
AMP shouldn’t feel broken compared to the canonical page.
Make sure these work properly:
- Navigation menus and internal links
- Social share buttons
- Email/newsletter forms (if used)
- Login/paywall/subscription components (if applicable)
- Ads and consent banners
- Comment embeds (or provide a clear “View comments” link back to canonical)
AMP shouldn’t feel broken compared to the canonical page.
- Keep the core content identical
- Keep the primary CTA available (subscribe, contact, buy, etc.)
- Provide a prominent link to “View full site” (canonical)
2) Use correct canonical + AMP annotations
This is non-negotiable for SEO clarity.
- On the canonical page, include a link to the AMP version
- On the AMP page, include a rel="canonical" pointing to the canonical URL.
This mutual relationship helps search engines understand which page is primary and how they relate. AMP documentation covers discoverability patterns, and Google provides broader guidance on canonical consolidation.
3) Keep SEO elements consistent
For each canonical/AMP pair, align:
- Page title (or very close)
- H1 and heading structure
- Meta description (optional but recommended)
- Indexing directives
- Structured data (Article/NewsArticle/BlogPosting/FAQPage as appropriate)
- Open Graph/Twitter card tags (for social sharing)
If the AMP page has trimmed navigation, that’s fine – but the content intent and topic targeting should remain consistent.
4) Use SEO-friendly URL patterns
If you’re differentiating AMP URLs, common patterns include:
- Subfolder
- Parameter
- Subdomain
Whatever you choose:
- Make it consistent across the site
- Avoid creating multiple AMP URL formats at once
- Ensure internal links don’t accidentally mix formats
5) Validate AMP regularly
AMP can silently break after theme/plugin/CMS updates.
Set a process to:
- Validate templates on release
- Spot-check high-traffic pages
- Monitor Search Console for AMP-related issues
6) Optimise images the “boring” way
AMP helps, but your media choices still dominate performance.
Do this:
- Use responsive sizes (don’t ship 2000px images to a 390px screen)
- Serve next-gen formats where possible (WebP/AVIF)
- Compress aggressively for mobile
- Avoid massive hero images unless they’re essential
- Always declare dimensions to reduce layout shifts
7) Control third-party scripts and tags
The fastest AMP pages are the ones that don’t try to behave like a fully scripted app.
Audit:
- Tag managers
- Heatmaps/session recording
- Multiple analytics trackers
- Retargeting pixels
- Social embed scripts
Every extra tag is a performance tax.
8) Make ads fast, stable, and measurable
Ads are often where AMP pages fail.
Best practices:
- Declare slot sizes to avoid layout jumps
- Limit the number of ad slots above the fold
- Prefer fewer, higher-quality placements over many small ones
- Ensure consent/TCF flows are functional on AMP if required in your region
9) Track performance with real UX metrics
Google’s guidance on Core Web Vitals focuses on real-world experience measurement.
Measure both versions:
- Canonical page CWV
- AMP page CWV
- Engagement (scroll, time on page)
- Conversion or micro-conversion rate (newsletter signups, contact clicks)
AMP can be fast but convert worse if it strips key trust elements, navigation, or CTAs.
10) Don’t assume you “don’t need a sitemap”
Your draft says “No need of sitemap.” That’s not a safe universal recommendation.
Even if Google can discover pages through links, sitemaps are still useful for:
- Faster discovery of new/updated URLs
- Large sites with deep architecture
- Monitoring index coverage
Treat sitemaps as best practice unless you have a strong reason not to.
Should You Build AMP Today - or Optimise Non-AMP Instead?
A practical decision rule:
Choose AMP if…
- You’re a publisher with heavy content velocity
- AMP is already integrated and maintained
- You need a “guardrail framework” that prevents teams from shipping slow pages
Choose non-AMP performance optimisation if…
- You’re not a publisher/news site
- Your canonical pages can meet strong mobile performance goals
- You want full flexibility in UI, scripting, and conversion optimisation
- You don’t want the overhead of dual templates
In many cases, the best modern SEO outcome comes from:
- A single responsive site
- Excellent CWV performance
- Clean structured data
- Strong internal linking and topical authority
Google’s public documentation places heavy emphasis on CWV as a way to understand real user experience.
SEO Element Consistency
SEO visibility can be negatively affected if the SEO elements used in both versions are not consistent. So, make sure you use the same codes for structured data, H1s and alternative image text as those used in the canonical version.
Mobile-friendly sites are a must in this era of mobile dominancy. The practices mentioned above will help you optimise the AMP and improve its performance considerably, leading to a higher ranking. Need to know more about AMP or SEO related subjects? Contact our SEO experts or email at sales@computingaustralia.group.
Jargon Buster
SERPs – Search Engine Results Pages – Google’s response to a user’s search query includes featured snippets, organic results, paid results etc.Optimise – A process that modifies how a campaign is delivering, boosting its performance. It includes improving any metric like CTR, Page Load Speed etc.
Sitemap – An XML file that displays all the URLs you want users to discover.
FAQ
Does AMP automatically improve rankings?
No. AMP can help performance, and performance can help user outcomes—but AMP itself is not a guaranteed ranking boost. Modern visibility is more tied to content quality, relevance, authority, and measurable user experience.
Is AMP required for Top Stories?
No—AMP has not been required for Top Stories for years.
Can AMP still be useful?
Yes, especially for publishers who want consistent fast article templates and have an established AMP workflow.
Does AMP guarantee a faster page?
AMP often helps you avoid common performance mistakes, but it doesn’t guarantee speed if you overload the page with heavy ads, third-party scripts, or unoptimised media. You still need image compression, sensible ad layouts, and clean tracking setups.
AMP vs Core Web Vitals: which matters more?
Core Web Vitals matter more as a framework for measuring real user experience across all pages. AMP can be one way to achieve better CWV, but it’s not required.
